Posted on 11/10/2004 4:51:01 AM PST by El Oviedo
Conservative opposition to Sen. Arlen Specter’s (R-Pa.) becoming chairman of the Judiciary Committee has mushroomed, to the dismay of Senate leaders who hoped it would fade, The Hill has learned.
Many conservatives were outraged by Specter’s comments after being reelected to a fifth term last week, when he said it is unlikely that the Senate would confirm judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Specter’s post-election statement that judicial nominees who oppose abortion rights may have a hard time getting confirmed has put Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and Specter’s junior colleague, Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), in difficult positions.
Both men are viewed to have White House ambitions. Frist is expected to retire from the Senate at the end of the next Congress to run for president, while Santorum’s supporters expect him also to run for the White House, perhaps as early as 2008.
The support of social conservatives is crucial to the presidential ambitions of both men, as conservatives — particularly evangelical Christians — demonstrated last week by helping President Bush defeat Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry by a comfortable margin.
Some GOP strategists speculated last week that the controversy over Specter’s remarks, which he hastily backed off of, might die down over the weekend. But conservative leaders such as James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, criticized Specter, as did House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.).
(Excerpt) Read more at hillnews.com ...
ping
This is the time to pour on the heat, if you are really a conservative. It has just been demonstrated that Republicans win only if their religious base turns out...a fact not lost on '08 wannabees. Specter deserves to lose this chairmanship after the pathetic answers he gave on Hannity's radio show a couple of days ago. He dissed the present Supreme Court, said Justice Thomas was only "satisfactory" and admitted that he would only approve nominees if his colleages (read "Democrats") okayed them, which would be right after Hell freezes over. Make today an even bigger mail day for Frist and Santorum!
Arlen Specter has back-pedaled furiously on this one, saying that any nomination of a judge not fully satisfactory to the Democrat minority would probably filibustered. So he would have been the gatekeeper who had only the best of intentions, preventing the embarrassment to the nominee.
Ha.
Remember Robert Bork.
And Specter's intention to preserve the integrity of Roe v. Wade.
The process for choosing a successor to Hatch, who will step down because of Republican Conference-imposed term limits, requires that members of the judiciary panel vote on a new chairman. That recommendation must then be ratified by the full conference.
But the committee is not expected to vote on Specter until January, when seven new GOP members have been sworn in and given committee assignments. (I thought this vote would take place next week.)Conservative activists may be hard-pressed to sustain their push against Specter for two more months.
On the other hand, a new class of conservatives will join the Senate, including former Reps. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Rep. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who could press the leadership on behalf of their constituencies. Another incoming freshman, former Rep. John Thune (R-S.D.), said over the weekend that the makeup of the federal judiciary was a main theme of his campaign.
In addition, Republican members of the Senate Judiciary Committee may be emboldened by anonymity to vote against Specter’s chairmanship, as the January vote will take place through secret ballot.
“I think there will be votes against him with a secret ballot,” said an aide to a Republican member of the committee. “The key is whether any Judiciary members lobby senators to vote against him prior to the conference vote.”
The aide added, “Specter not the right person for the position. Specter has shown he’s not a team player.”
Specter may be hurt by his positions on tort reform, a central element of Bush’s second-term agenda. The focus of the fight against Specter should not just be abortion - he's against more conservative issues that just abortion.
In the past election cycle, he accepted more than three times as much money in political contributions from lawyers and law firms than from any other industry, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. I also read he received donations from George Soros - that alone should disqualify him for any GOP position of authority.And Specter’s son is a prominent Philadelphia-based trial lawyer.
That has raised the suspicions of several tort-reform proponents, who said momentum on the issue could be hampered if Specter presided over the committee of primary jurisdiction.
Oh, Specter's a team player alright...just the wrong team!
there's something to be said about watching a politician twist in the wind ... W or Santorum could easily call off the dogs ... legacy building can be a tough thing Arlen, just aks billxxxlinton
President Bush and/or Senator Frist could call an end to this in a moment if they wanted to by publicly announcing their support for Specter. The fact that they haven't is very interesting. I think they want to wait a little longer and see how it all plays out. Maybe Specter will be the one to pull the plug and announce that he doesn't want the position.
There was a statement on an interview on Concerned Women for America's website that stated this, but apparently that informatin is incorrect. The best I can tell is that maybe only committee assignments and intial chairmen assignments will be made then. It makes sense that the actual meeting would take place in January. But who knows, no one is talking about the process. This is GOP business and they can do it whenever they wish.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.