Posted on 11/04/2004 5:54:36 AM PST by Always Right
In Day One we established the need to remove Specter from the Judiciary. To sum it up:
1. Specter is in line to become Chairman of the Judiciary.
2. Specter yesterday showed he expects to obstruct Bush in nominating conservative judges.
3. Specter’s vision of a ‘balance court’ is the exact same rhetoric of Senator Kerry.
4. Specter will do whatever it takes to see the courts do not become conservative. Read his books.
5. Specter is a huge proponent of Rov v. Wade.
6. Specter was not elected President, but has threatened the President should he nominate conservative judges.
7. As Chairman, Specter has the power to kill Bush’s judicial nominations.
Now in Day 2, we must take action. Today’s goal is to create some BUZZ. We need to contact the conservative media, like Rush and Hannity and other radio talk shows. Contact FoxNews, Brit Hume, Tony Snow. Here’s an example:
Senator Specter’s remarks yesterday concerning Bush’s judicial appointments were disturbing. If nothing is done, Senator Specter is in line to be Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We need a Chairman who supports our President and his judicial nominations in that position, not someone who is on record as wanting to obstruct the President’s judical appointments. This is a very critical position, and allowing Specter to become chairman would be no different than appointing Senator Kennedy. Specter’s vision of the court is 180 degrees off of President Bush’s. President Bush will have a difficult time enough getting appointments through, but it would be an insult if the biggest obstruction is getting past one liberal GOP Senator, especially one who Bush helped.
Also, provide them with links to yesterdays’s story, Specter warns Bush on high court nominations or the same story posted here on FreeRepublic, Specter warns Bush on high court nominations
We must not allow this back-stabbing liberal to veto President Bush’s victory.
I think you need to read Specters book and listen to his statements over the years. Protecting Roe v. Wade is his top priority. Specter will only go along with a conservative supreme court judge, if he is absolutely certain there are 5 or 6 liberal votes on the Supreme Court. He has stated this clearly time and time again. He will under no circumstance ever let the Supreme Court have a conservative tilt. Specter will not risk Roe v. Wade under any circumstances. Specter's position on this is 100% in line with Kerry's. You can quote either one, they are identicle. Would you willing put Kerry in charge of the Judiciary? I kind of thought that what the election was for.
And, I believe we must put all the legs to our prayers that we can in all the ways we can until the job is done.
I think one thing we must do is mob Hannity with emails and calls as well even as O'Reilly.
I don't expect O'Reilly to do anything until we get the story more widely talked about. But I'd like to alert him with the measure of citizen interest.
I also think we need to contact all our personal GOP contacts and press for every action possible to remove him from any chance at the chairmanship of the Judiciar Committee.
Does anyone know what the rules are about such chairmanships? It would help to know so we could focus prayers about such.
I believe it is very important to avoid letting this get lost between the cracks or lost in the shuffle in all the success of the campaign.
THIS MAN WILL CAUSE NO END OF GRIEF AS LONG AS HE HAS ANY POSITION OF POWER. He is as much a tool of satan as SKERRY AND SHRILLERY. I mean that literally. I'm not being the least bit figurative.
I believe intercessors/prayer warriors would do well to make this a daily focus until God moves to correct this problem. I think we need to also pray for a true conservative Republican replacement for him after God removes him from power.
PLEASE DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE THE SERIOUSNESS OF HIS OBSTRUCTIONISM AND TROUBLE-MAKING.
Dear Senator Frist,
We in the heartland celebrate the relection of George W. Bush and see this election as a mandate for conservative values across the board.
I am deeply troubled to hear that Senator Arlen Specter has chosen to put the President on notice regarding his Supreme Court nominees and feel quite strongly that this man has NO business telling the President what to do! The American people have spoken and we WANT Supreme Court justices who are strict constructionists, NOT those who would legislate from the bench.
Please do whatever is necessary to see that Senator Specter does NOT head the Judiciary committee, as I believe he would be combative to the President.
Thank you for your consideration, and congratulations on a stunning Republican victory!
Exactly. .....a pefect way to set the tone for the 2nd term.
I sent a letter to Frist.
The bottom guy is my new Senator, David Vitter!!!!!
I am contacting Vitter now about his awful development.
To those who mistakenly believe that Specter "will be a good boy" and "play nice", let me assure you that as someone who has been very involved in the judicial nominations process for several years now, Specter has been a thorn in the side for quite some time. Time and time and time again, he has stalled nominees. I know this for a fact.
This is the LAST thing we need going into a Supreme Court fight.
If you want to get updates on the judicial nominations battle, including the Supreme Court fight, sign up at my website -- www.fairjudiciary.com. And yes, any donations are welcome -- we are going head to head with People for the American Way, the NAACP, NOW, NARAL, ACLU...and the list goes endlessly on. Help if you can.
But definitely call/email Frist's office. VERY helpful. And if you have Republican Senators representing your state, call them as well. The caucus needs to know that we are NOT happy about this.
I will look into it.
I think the President and his advisors are very, very smart people. They'll do the right thing.
Just sent this message to Craig Thomas and Mike Enzi, US Senate, WY:
The Republican party has much to celebrate! President Bush has won more votes than any other candidate in the history of our country. The American people have sent a clear message that we are in favor of the President's direction. However, Senator Arlen Spector has made it clear that he will block the President's nominations for the Supreme Court. This is simply unacceptable. President Bush was the one to win reelection by a margin of over three million votes from all of America, not Arlen Spector. Please do everything possible to remove Mr. Spector from the Judiciary Committee for his disloyal hubris.
I am so sorry. Many of us just take if for granted that all states are getting the help they need. I look for areas to give that will help, Okla. is always safe, I give here also, but will always give to out of state elections that need our help. Perhaps a plea for some Freepers to come in and help. That is a long drive for me, but $$$$$ can help. Again Sorry.
Santourm Imhoff or Coleman would be great choices for the Chairmanship. I hope Sen Frist is paying attention.
Email/call Frist and he will.
I am not up to speed on these links. Sorry.
By the way, if Specter is not put in the chairmanship, the next person in line for the spot is Kyl, which would be acceptable.
do you have an email for spector so that we can write to him and comment about the weather and the PA sports teams and general chit chat like that? :-)
You might be right. It's a 19 member committee, if they don't replace Edwards' slot then they might leave it status quo. If they do add one Rep. Coburn would be great. If they do add a Dem Salazar has my vote.
But I see what you are saying, if they add an extra Rep vote it could/would offset Specter' vote. He's still a slime-ball for saying what he did so soon after the election. It only gives fodder for the Dems to quote him as the "mainstream voice" in the Senate.
We've got more problems than him though. RINO's like Collins, Snow and Chaffee might not help win the filibuster and you can count on it they wouldn't vote for confirming a Conservative at the end. Then you got the McCain, Hagel and Lugar "middle of the roaders" problem. It's going to be a long road. We need to make a deal that we should at least replace Conservative for Conservative in exchange for Lib with Lib.
Senate seniority is #1. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200.
Senator Bill Frist
461 DIRKSEN SENATE OFF
ICE BUILDING
WASHINGTON DC 20510 (202) 224-3344
FAX: (202)228-1264
Toll Free Number for Capitol: 1-877-762-8762
Nashville:
Office of Senator Bill Frist
28 White Bridge Road
Suite 211
Nashville, TN 37205
615-352-9411
615-352-9985 (fax)
Chattanooga
James Building
735 Broad Street, Suite 701
Chattanooga, TN 37402
423-756-2757
423-756-5313 (fax)
Jackson
200 East Main Street
Suite 111
Jackson, TN 38301
731-424-9655
731-424-8322 (fax)
Kingsport/Tri-Cities
10368 Wallace Alley Street
Suite 7
Kingsport, TN 37663
423-323-1252
423-323-0358 (fax)
Knoxville
Twelve Oaks Executive Park
Building One, Suite 170
Knoxville, TN 37919
865-602-7977
865-602-7979 (fax)
Memphis
5100 Poplar Avenue
Suite 514
Memphis, TN 38137
901-683-1910
901-683-3610 (fax)
Current Senate Judiciary Committee:
(R)Orrin G. Hatch
CHAIRMAN, UTAH
(d)Patrick J. Leahy
RANKING DEMOCRATIC MEMBER, VERMONT
(R)Charles E. Grassley
IOWA
(d)Edward M. Kennedy
MASSACHUSETTS
(R)Arlen Specter
PENNSYLVANIA
(d)Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
DELAWARE
(R)Jon Kyl
ARIZONA
(d)Herbert Kohl
WISCONSIN
(R)Mike DeWine
OHIO
(d)Dianne Feinstein
CALIFORNIA
(R)Jeff Sessions
ALABAMA
(d)Russell D. Feingold
WISCONSIN
(R)Lindsey Graham
SOUTH CAROLINA
(d)Charles E. Schumer
NEW YORK
(R)Larry Craig
IDAHO
(d)Richard J. Durbin
ILLINOIS
(R)Saxby Chambliss
GEORGIA
(d)John Edwards NORTH CAROLINA
(R)John Cornyn TEXAS
By Amy Worden, Carrie Budoff and Steve Goldstein
Inquirer Staff Writers
Invigorated by a decisive win and the prospect of assuming a more prominent role in the U.S. Senate, Arlen Specter cautioned President Bush yesterday not to interpret his own victory as a clear mandate, and urged him to respond to the Republican Party's more moderate wing.
Specter, as presumptive chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, suggested that he would block any Bush nominee to the Supreme Court who opposed abortion rights. Reiterating his position that a woman's right to choose is "inviolate," he said overturning Roe v. Wade today would be akin to trying to reverse Brown v. Board of Education, the court's 1954 landmark desegregation decision.
Barring unforeseen GOP objections, Specter, 74, should assume the committee chairmanship in January. He also sent an unsubtle message to the White House that he expects nominees for the federal bench to be of the highest caliber, and took a critical swipe at the stature of the current court.
At a news conference less than 12 hours after winning a record fifth Senate term, Specter wasted no time in asserting himself.
"If you have a race that is won by a percent or two, you have a narrowly divided country, and that's not a traditional mandate," he said. "President Bush will have that very much in mind."
"The number-one item on my agenda is to try to move the party to the center," Specter said. "I want to focus on the politics of inclusion."
Specter spoke bluntly, as if he regarded himself as a "free agent," in the phrase of a political analyst, either because of his new power or because his fifth term might be his last.
To win the new term, Specter defeated Democratic U.S. Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel by 11 percentage points, making the outcome one of his more decisive victories in 24 years.
He picked up more votes - almost 2.9 million - than ever before, and earned the second-largest plurality of his Senate campaigns. Specter offset a poor showing in the city by sweeping the Philadelphia suburbs and winning commanding margins through the rest of the state.
When recent polls showed Hoeffel down by more than 20 percentage points, "that was when I thought people had just decided that they would stay with seniority," Hoeffel said in an interview yesterday.
The campaign could have used more money for TV commercials, Hoeffel said, but he was pleased with how the race was conducted.
"I really felt we had a good chance of winning," Hoeffel said. "An 11-point margin is not a close margin, so it didn't work out as I hoped it would."
The Senate seniority that Specter emphasized so often during the campaign will likely take center stage in the coming months if Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, who has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer, leaves the bench. In addition, a number of other justices are thought to be considering retirement.
Yesterday, Specter described Rehnquist as "gravely ill" before taking a jab at the chief justice and his colleagues, saying there were no longer legal "giants" on the bench of the caliber of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis and Benjamin Cardozo.
"With all due respect, we don't have them on [the court] now," he said.
Specter's comments on judicial appointments were what conservatives feared - that despite receiving the President's help during the primary to overcome a conservative challenger, Specter would hold firm to his centrist principles with court nominees.
"There will be all eyes on Specter to see how he reacts to who the President selects," said Sarah Binder, an expert in the selection of judges at the Brookings Institute in Washington. "I'm sure the administration will consult with Specter to see what will fly."
Specter, who is in line to succeed the committee's current chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah), has been criticized by Hoeffel and others for vowing to appoint "centrist" judges while supporting several Bush nominees, including right-wing judges who opposed abortion rights.
But some political observers say it might be Specter, whose moderate views have alienated conservative Republicans, rather than Bush who will feel the heat from both sides of the political spectrum.
"Over the next several years Specter will be on the hot seat in a really big way," said Mark J. Rozell, a political scientist at George Mason University in Virginia. "Specter is not popular, especially among conservatives. But because of Bush's victory, the conservatives have high expectations. This could be real intra-party trouble for them."
Former Pennsylvania Rep. Bob Walker, who held the second-ranking leadership post when Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House, said that chairs of full committees "are real powerful people, and the more powerful the committee, the more influence they have."
Specter, said Walker, "will have the power to negotiate on Senate matters beyond his committee post" by virtue of his chairmanship.
As Specter settles into his new Washington role, Hoeffel will leave Congress, having given up his House seat to run for the Senate. Hoeffel, a lawyer, said he did not know what he would do next.
Colleagues and friends say he could challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum in 2006, but Hoeffel would say yesterday only that "I have no plans to run for any office."
Jon Delano, a political analyst at Carnegie Mellon University, said that despite Hoeffel's loss, "he is someone who clearly has a future if he wants it."
"He should take a lesson from Arlen Specter, who ran three times and lost before he won," Delano said. "That is a good role model."
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