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A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that newly-minted Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter has a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Pat Toomey. Specter, who changed his party afflilation to Democrat in April, leads Toomey by 46 percent to 37 percent among registered voters, the poll found. That's a narrower lead than a May 4 poll, which found Specter's lead at 53 percent to Toomey's 33 percent. "Sen. Arlen Specter's numbers have slipped since the controversy that followed his switch to the Democratic Party, but he's still better off than he would have been if he stayed a Republican and faced a...

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, who switched to the Democratic side of the aisle from Republican last month, is shocked, shocked that some of his former brethren aren’t so happy about the move. “I feel very comfortable being a Democrat. My new colleagues were always my friends,” the five-term Senator told Men.Style.com, the online site for GQ and Details magazines.

May 1, 2009 -- Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter’s sudden change from the Republican to the Democratic Party has left Republicans with mixed feelings: rage that he is probably handing the Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate at one of the most critical political junctures in modern times and relief that they’re rid of a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who has often been at odds with the majority of Republicans on crucial issues. George W. Bush’s eight years in the White House, during six of which the Republicans controlled both the House and Senate, were actually not good times for the GOP....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Wednesday hailed Arlen Specter's conversion to the Democratic Party, while Specter vowed that he'll be an asset as Obama tries to get his ambitious agenda through Congress. Obama said, "I am grateful that he is here." Specter was joined by Obama and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House Wednesday morning. Specter noted that he and longtime friend Biden "have talked over every problem under the sun and the moon." With a beaming Obama standing at his side, Specter said: "I think that I can be of assistance to you, Mr. President....

My one rule of politics is that the future is never a straight line projection of the present. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter's unexpected decision to switch parties and run for re-election in 2010 as a Democrat proves the rule. Mr. Specter often votes for liberal Democratic initiatives and infuriates conservative Republicans. Still, his surprise defection was a crushing setback for the GOP, instantly reducing what limited power Republicans have in the Senate. The GOP's ability to stop liberal legislation is now weakened if not eliminated in some instances. CorbisMr. Specter's jump across the aisle significantly adds to the heavy Republican...

Senator Arlen Specter has announced that he will not vote for the mis-named Employee Free Choice Act which would eliminate the private ballot for workers: "Senator Arlen Specter, who was the lone Republican to side with Democrats on the Senate's last vote on union-organizing legislation, announced Tuesday that he would not vote for this session's bill. * * * With some Democrats expressing ambivalence on the bill, the Democratic sponsors indicated before Mr. Specter's announcement that they did not have the 60 votes to move it forward." The bill would let workers chose to form a union when a majority...

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) does not have the fall-back option of running as an independent should he lose his 2010 primary election, giving the senior lawmaker strong incentive to abandon his party this year. Specter faces an extremely difficult primary race against former Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), the conservative firebrand who lost his bid to oust Specter from his seat in the 2004 GOP primary by a mere 17,000 votes (out of more than a million cast).

Dear Friends, As you know, today the President signed into law the "Americans Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009." The vote on the stimulus package was a very tough vote because of the very large deficit we have and the very large national debt faced by future generations. But the economy is in a desperate situation. Just in the month of January we lost 600,000 jobs, added to the loss of 2.8 million last year. There are millions of people who are having their homes foreclosed. The economists tell us that if we do not act that the current severe...

Sen. Specter Jeered For Voting For Stimulus Plan PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter was greeted with jeers at a press conference in Cranberry Township. Conservatives are fuming after Specter cast the deciding vote that led to the passage of President Barack Obama's stimulus plan. Specter, 79, acknowledges his run for re-election will be tough. He says he's not completely happy with Obama's plans but he points out that he was able to cut the price tag by over $100 billion and he says he was able to increase the amount of tax cuts. Even so, Specter acknowledges the...

From Rasmussen: Senator Arlen Specter is one of only three Republicans to support the economic stimulus bill in Congress, and the latest Rasmussen Reports survey in Pennsylvania shows that his position is costing him support back home. Just 31percent of Keystone State voters say are more likely to vote for Specter because of his position on the stimulus package while 40 percent are less likely to do so. A look inside the numbers shows the problem for Specter may be even more significant. Fifty

WASHINGTON — For years, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania has been the National Institutes of Health’s most ardent champion on Capitol Hill. Having survived two bouts with cancer, open-heart surgery and even a faulty diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease, he has long insisted that research that results in medical cures is the best service that government can provide. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania arrived Friday at the Capitol to cast a crucial vote on the economic stimulus bill. But even lobbyists are stunned by the coup Mr. Specter pulled off this week. In return for providing one of only three...

A major public policy success, welfare reform in the mid-1990s led to a dramatic reduction in welfare dependency and child poverty. This successful reform, however is now in jeopardy: Little-noted provisions in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate stimulus bills actually abolish this historic reform. In addition, the stimulus bills will add nearly $800 billion in new means-tested welfare spending over the next decade. This new spending amounts to around $22,500 for every poor person in the U.S. The cost of the new welfare spending amounts, on average, to over $10,000 for each family paying income tax. *...

Democrats began to press Mr. Specter, saying he would get the $10 billion increase only if he promised to vote for the eventual bill. Mr. Specter pushed back, saying he was concerned about the size of the bill and its mix of tax credits and spending. “I really do not make deals,” he said. And while he had promised Mr. Durbin nothing, the Illinois senator had made him a promise. As Mr. Durbin recalled, at a Super Bowl party at the White House on Feb. 1, “I told him, ‘I’m keeping my word.’ ” More hard bargaining was ahead. Mr....

Here we go. Bon Voyage Madam

With the $789 billion economic stimulus package he helped broker set for a vote in the U.S. House and Senate, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., phoned home Thursday to unhappy members of the Pennsylvania State Republican Committee. The conference call was initiated by Specter, his office said. It was a "conversation" to explain his thinking for backing the spending plan that Democrats hope will deliver jobs for the tanking U.S. economy. But a growing chorus of Pennsylvania state Republican officials say their faith in Specter is irretrievably broken. And some are vowing to defeat Specter in the Republican primary in 2010....

BREAKING NEWS: Lawmakers have reached deal on stimulus plan, Sen. Reid announces.

I went to visit Sen. Arlen Specter to save him from an embarrassing pro-stimulus vote that will damage America's economy and send the nation back to 1970s-style stagflation. Jim Robinson, founder of FreeRepublic.com, and I arrived at Sen. Specter's office with a group of folks who oppose the $1.5 trillion stimulus package, on this past Monday morning. We asked to see Sen. Specter. The office secretary didn't seem to be happy to see us. I could not blame her. We were there to embarrass her boss. Jim, wearing his Navy cap, asked about the senator's whereabouts, but the secretary wasn't...

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, one of three GOPers expected to cross the aisle on stimulus cloture, offers a Washington Post op-ed today in defense of the "Moderate's Bill" which cut about $100 billion from the House stimulus package. His argument to Republicans: We've pushed Pelosi as far as she's willing to go -- and need to take this deal now. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the proposed cuts "do violence to what we are trying to do for the future," especially on education. Her objections are a warning to conservatives that more cuts would be unlikely to win House...

The three Senate Republicans who say they’ll support the $827 billion economic recovery plan are facing pressure from both sides of the debate. A group of stimulus opponents led by Free­Republic.com founder Jim Robinson and Move America Forward chairwoman Melanie Morgan plans to protest outside the office of Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) at 10 a.m. Monday before moving on to the offices of Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. Meanwhile, the group Americans United for Change is running radio ads in Pennsylvania, Maine and Nebraska — the home state of Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson — thanking the senators...

I am supporting the economic stimulus package for one simple reason: The country cannot afford not to take action. The unemployment figures announced Friday, the latest earnings reports and the continuing crisis in banking make it clear that failure to act will leave the United States facing a far deeper crisis in three or six months. By then the cost of action will be much greater -- or it may be too late. Wave after wave of bad economic news has created its own psychology of fear and lowered expectations. As in the old Movietone News, the eyes and ears...

Jim Robinson delivered the following letter to the offices of Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe this morning.The Honorable Arlen Specter 711 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, D.C. 20510 Sen. Specter, On behalf of the several hundred thousand members of FreeRepublic.com, I urge you to vote against cloture and passage of the so-called stimulus bill, or as we call it, the Porkulus Bill. We appreciate your good faith efforts on improving the bill. However, statements by your Democratic colleagues show that they have no intention of abiding by the compromises negotiated with you. In short, the Democrats are...

Sen. Arlen Specter, a 26-year Senate Republican, said he will visit Syria despite loud objections by the Bush administration, contending the situation in Iraq is so dire that it is time Congress step up to the plate and see what it can do. Specter, R-Pa., said in an interview late Friday that he is planning a trip to the Middle East that will include Israel and Syria. The senator said he and other Republicans are concerned that the administration's policies in the Middle East are not working and that other GOP members may follow in his footsteps. "I've talked to...

by Mark Finkelstein June 25, 2006 As Brit Hume put it, "Senator Specter, who gets worked up over anything, he doesn't seem bothered by the NY Times disclosure of [the anti-terror banking program]. He's going to 'look into it'." Indeed. Specter, who began his political career as a prosecutor, played defense lawyer for the Gray Lady. On this morning's Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked the senior senator from PA "do you think the Times was wrong to publish this story as well as the NSA warrantless wiretap story, and does it rise to the level that they should...

When Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter stepped into the shower yesterday, it was an elusive immigration overhaul, not a slippery bar of soap, that he most hoped to keep within his grasp. The Pennsylvania Republican wanted a way to counter the House GOP’s unusual post-passage hearings on the bill, which are sure to delay negotiations and give a platform to critics of the Senate’s “path to citizenship” for millions of illegal immigrants. “I plan to hold some hearings of our own,” he told surprised reporters in the Capitol later in the day. “I just developed the idea this morning in...

Vice President Dick Cheney Thursday defended himself against accusations by a leading Republican senator that he worked to thwart Senate plans to make telephone executives testify at a hearing about a U.S. domestic spying program. A day after Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter rebuked Cheney for trying to head off subpoenas of the phone company executives, Cheney acknowledged that he had spoken to Senate leaders and members of Specter's committee. He said in a letter to Specter that he acted when the administration became concerned about a "compulsory process to force testimony" in a matter that could involve classified...

<p>Wednesday, June 07, 2006 WASHINGTON — A constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman stalled Wednesday in a 49-48 vote, but conservative backers say they are pleased to have had the vote nonetheless.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and congressional Republicans are aiming the political spotlight this week on efforts to ban gay marriage, with events at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue - all for a constitutional amendment with scant chance of passage but wide appeal among social conservatives. "Ages of experience have taught us that the commitment of a husband and wife to love and to serve one another promotes the welfare of children and the stability of society," Bush said in his weekly radio address. "Government, by recognizing and protecting marriage, serves the interests of all." The president was to make...

O.K. Freepers, here’s the list of Pubbies who voted with the Dems Thursday to give Social Security benefits to Illegal Aliens. Brownback (KS) Chafee (RI) DeWine (OH) Graham (SC) Hagel (NE) Lugar (IN) Martinez (FL) McCain (AZ) Specter (PA) Stevens (AK) Voinovich (OH) I must admit that I was shocked by Brownback’s and Lugar’s votes.

The government should consider a tax on oil companies if they make excessive profits amid rising gasoline prices, a leading Republican senator said Sunday. Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said a windfall profits tax, along with measures to stem concentration of market power among a few select oil companies, could offer eventual relief to consumers hurting at the gas pump. "I believe that we have allowed too many companies to get together to reduce competition," Specter said. "They get together, reduce the supply of oil, and that drives up prices," he said. "In the short...

WASHINGTON - Key provisions of the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" program for illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, and create a guest worker program to bring in more foreign laborers, according to Senate Judiciary Committee staff members. The committee is to begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by the committee chairman, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the legislation is designed to strike a middle course between a bill passed by the House that calls...

THE ILLEGAL ALIEN GOLD CARD By Michelle Malkin   ·   March 07, 2006 10:38 AM Photoshop courtesy of the Stein Report I'm not making this up: Key provisions of the Senate's main immigration bill would create a "gold card" program for illegal immigrants who entered the United States before Jan. 4, 2004, and create a guest worker program to bring in more foreign laborers, according to Senate Judiciary Committee staff members. The committee is to begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by the committee...

WASHINGTON - The Senate’s main immigration bill would enable most illegal immigrants now in the United States to remain indefinitely as long as they stay employed, but it wouldn’t put them on a glide path to U.S. citizenship. The Senate Judiciary Committee will begin debating the measure Wednesday under a three-week timetable aimed at producing a final version for the full Senate by March 27. Sponsored by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the committee chairman, the legislation is designed to strike a middle course between a bill passed by the House of Representatives calling for tougher immigration enforcement and pro-immigration advocates...

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal. Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Hearings into the surveillance program are scheduled to begin Monday on Capitol Hill. Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, the former head of the National Security Agency, defended the surveillance on ABC's "This Week" and the Fox News Network, the International Herald Tribune reported. "It's about speed," General...

WASHINGTON — Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter said Wednesday he remains skeptical about a government surveillance program despite an explanation from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The two met for an hour Sunday to discuss the rationale for the warrantless eavesdropping by the National Security Agency that President Bush approved without obtaining any court orders. "I would summarize it by saying I have grave doubts about his legal conclusion," Specter, R-Pa., said of a meeting with Gonzales, who was confirmed before Specter's committee early this year. "I'm skeptical, but I'm prepared to listen." Specter said he expects Gonzales to be the...

WASHINGTON -- A draft immigration bill from Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter calls for dramatic increases in legal immigration, far beyond any of the other major proposals now before Congress.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., had wasted no time in grilling Roberts on one of the big issues of the day _ abortion _ and Roberts wasted no time in displaying his skills at the artful dodge. "Would you think that Roe might be a super-duper precedent?" Specter probed, pointing to times it has been upheld by the Supreme Court.

Pressure To Pick Minority JusticeWASHINGTON -- President Bush faces renewed pressure to name a woman or non-white to the new Supreme Court vacancy - a choice that could ease a difficult confirmation process. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday that two women on the court "are a minimum," adding, "My preference would be to see that kind of diversity maintained."

Senator wants improved Venezuela relations By WILLIAM C. MANN, Associated Press Writer (Published August 19‚ 2005) WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican senator asked Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday to lower his rhetoric against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to help win Venezuela's support for combating illegal narcotics. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. who met this week with Chavez, reminded Rumsfeld in a letter that the United States needs Venezuela's help for effective action against drug trafficking in South America. "In this context," the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman wrote, "it may well be helpful to, at least, have a moratorium on...

In a letter yesterday to Judge John G. Roberts Jr., Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said he plans to probe the Supreme Court nominee's interpretation of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce, which has underpinned many civil rights, worker protection and environmental laws. The high court in recent years has scaled back that power by narrow conservative majorities. The Pennsylvania Republican said in the letter that he sees "a great deal of popular and congressional dissatisfaction with the judicial activism" that trimmed congressional authority under the Commerce Clause. Specter characterized lawmakers as "irate about the court's denigrating and, really,...

WASHINGTON - Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said yesterday that he was considering pushing for the creation of a commission to investigate the administration's incarceration policies at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. "I'm giving serious thought to [a commission]. ... It's a strong measure," the Pennsylvania Republican said. "But the 9/11 commission found out a lot of things that the congressional committees couldn't find out."

The chairman of the Senate panel that will oversee hearings on President Bush's Supreme Court nominee said yesterday that he would like to see someone in the tradition of retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and perhaps someone with experience in politics. Sen. Arlen Specter, Pennsylvania Republican, said he didn't want to recommend a specific candidate because of his role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But he said he would like to see a nominee who has experience outside the judiciary, which would rule out many of the candidates that Mr. Bush is said to be considering. The candidates...

...HUME:Question to you, sir: Should this next nominee be required to answer questions in the areas where Ruth Bader Ginsburg (search) did not? SPECTER: Without getting into the details as to what Justice Ginsburg answered, I think it inappropriate for a nominee to give an answer specifically as to how he or she would decide a specific case. When someone uses a word like "insist," that's a pretty strong word, and no senator has the power to insist that anything happen. A senator can ask any question that the senator wants to ask, but then it's up to the nominee...

Hypocrisy is nothing new in political circles, but Sen. Arlen Specter's tartuffery this week was outrageous even by his standards. In a diatribe against Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the new head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the senior senator from Pennsylvania complained at a congressional hearing that the corporation wasted $15,000 in taxpayers' money when Mr. Tomlinson hired two lobbyists to look into a bill that would have required more representation for public radio and TV stations on the corporation's board of directors. But Sen. Specter is a spendthrift of the highest magnitude. In 2004, he was named Porker of...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Arlen Specter floats a rather bizarre selection to replace Chief Justice William Rehnquist if, as expected, he retires this week: Outgoing Associate Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Specter Suggests a Chief Justice: O'Connor (NYT | RSS) Senator Arlen Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, suggested on Sunday that President Bush could name Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, to the position of chief justice if it opens up. "I think it would be very tempting if the president said to Justice O'Connor, 'You could help the country now,' " Mr. Specter, Republican...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Arlen Specter, suffering from cancer, said Monday he plans to take public his anger over the government's restrictions on funding for studies on human embryonic stem cells. "I think it's time that a little hell was raised about this subject," Specter, R-Pa., said in a telephone interview. That time will arrive Tuesday, Specter said, when he gavels open the Senate's first hearing on his bill to lift President Bush's restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. It carries the greatest promise among such studies searching for cures to Alzheimer's disease and other ailments. Set...

As lawmakers of both parties continue to question whether the government should close the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention center after reports of prisoner mistreatment, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter has called hearings today to clarify the legal rights of those prisoners. Legal scholars have argued for months over whether detainees at the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba should receive the protections afforded to prisoners of war or be classified as "enemy combatants," as the Bush administration has argued, which drastically limits their rights. Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay prisoners can challenge their detainment...

Dear Friend, What a week! The fight to give the President's judicial nominations an up-or-down vote is heating up. You received all sorts of exciting alerts from my staff last week and I want to thank you for taking action. Here's the summary of where we stand and here's what I need to ask you to do now. You played a tremendous role in urging the Senate to finally do its job! Thousands of more calls flooded your Senator's offices demanding their participation in securing those long awaited up-or-down votes on our judicial nominees. Your participation in the "Blue Finger...

THE WASHINGTON TIMES Senate Republicans are expressing concerns that Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter will defy party leaders and oppose the so-called "nuclear option" to end Democratic filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees. The Pennsylvania Republican -- who was nearly passed over for the committee chairmanship because of his independent ways -- says publicly that he is undecided about whether he'll vote with Majority Leader Bill Frist and Republicans to limit filibusters of judicial nominations. Click to learn more... But a Senate speech last week in which Mr. Specter advised senators to ignore "party loyalty" has some Republicans convinced that...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 - The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Thursday that his party's proposal to change the Senate's rules if Democrats continued to block President Bush's judicial nominees would wreak havoc in the Senate. Moreover, the chairman, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, suggested that his party might not even have the votes to enact the rules change. Mr. Specter's outspokenness was especially notable coming when Republican leaders were hoping to present a unified front to bolster the credibility of the threat they are brandishing against the Democrats. It is not the first time that Mr. Specter...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said yesterday that Republicans are partly to blame for the escalating standoff over several of President Bush's judicial nominations. "Both parties are at fault," the Pennsylvania Republican said at a Capitol Hill press conference.