Pro-Life Campaign Ready to Go to the Mat to Block Specter

Pro-life advocates are not letting Republican Senator Arlen Specter off the hook. Religious groups that oppose the ascension of Specter to chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee have protested outside a Senate office building.

The fifth-term senator from Pennsylvania has been criticized for saying that pro-life judges are unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate. Many pro-life groups interpreted his remarks as an open warning to President Bush not to nominate individuals with a pro-life bent because they likely would not make it out of the Judiciary Committee. Since making those comments on the day after the election, he has promised he will not block any of the president's judicial nominees. Evidently that promise is not enough to extinguish pro-lifers' concerns.

Pro-lifers are mustering forces for a two-month campaign designed to prevent Senator Specter from chairing the Judiciary Committee. One of those high-profile activists is Jan LaRue of Concerned Women for America. She says unless Specter's fellow Committee members decide to promote someone else to the post of chairman, the Pennsylvania Republican would be in a controlling position to do what he has vowed to do in the past: block any judicial nomination that would threaten the future of Roe v. Wade.

Jan LaRue LaRue believes Specter's philosophy is flawed. "Arlen Specter wants judges who share his view that the Constitution is living and growing -- which sounds more like he's describing a fungus than the highest law of the land," the CWA's chief counsel says.

She is convinced Specter cannot be trusted to carry out President Bush's agenda because he opposes nearly all of that agenda. There are several other qualified Committee members, she says, who would make a better chairman. "Give us Jon Kyl, give us Jeff Sessions, give us John Cornyn," she laments. "Give us any true 'red' Republican -- but don't give us Arlen Specter."

In terms of seniority, Specter is next in line to succeed outgoing Committee chairman Orrin Hatch. She takes issue with that tradition -- particularly when Specter has gone back on his word before on pro-family issues. "Why in the world would Republicans take the great risk of trusting Specter?" she asks. "This is too important to prefer the tradition of seniority above getting it right."

LaRue says having Specter chair the Judiciary Committee makes about as much sense has having anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore head up the Republican National Committee.

Precedence? Or Principle? Specter met on Tuesday with fellow Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to discuss his pending nomination as chairman. Senator Hatch says he supports Specter and expects the Pennsylvania senator to win the backing of the full panel as well. After the meeting, Hatch remarked, "Senator Specter handled himself very well. I expect him to be the next chairman. I think it will be resolved satisfactorily."

But the executive director of the Christian Defense Coalition, who was among those protesting outside the Senate Office Building, says religious conservatives who made the difference in the election do not want Specter to become chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"If Senator Specter becomes head of the Judiciary [Committee], it is a betrayal and a slap in the face to millions of pro-life Americans who worked to help re-elect this president and get a 55 Republican majority in the Senate," the Coalition's Rev. Patrick Mahoney stated.

Like LaRue, Mahoney has trouble believing Specter would change his stripes after four Senate terms that reflect a liberal record and beliefs about the Constitution that are contrary to the president's. "Senator Specter needs to be passionately and aggressively pushing the judicial agenda of President Bush," he says. "Even by his own comments and his own words, Senator Specter is not the right person for this job."

Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council was also among those outside the Senate Office Building on Tuesday. Schenck accuses Specter of taking advantage of the political situation now occurring in the nation's capital. He says Specter wants to use "the unprecedented success of this president and of his fellow Republicans in the last election" to claim the Committee chairmanship "while he rejects the very platform that gave the Republicans that success."

Senate Majority Leader Frist is under the scrutiny of the pro-lifers. "Senator Frist must decide: seniority -- or principle? Seniority -- or the core of the Republican Party who help elect them?" says the Christian Defense Coalition's Mahoney. "That's what's at stake here."

Let's assume for a moment that, for reasons having to do with the political structure of the Senate, the pro-life Republican leaders, which includes President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Senate Majority Leader Frist, see better than we do the need to keep Arlen Specter in the caucus, and so are willing to cut a deal with him that lets him keep the chairmanship with all of it perks, but with the proviso that IF he does not support the President's nominees, or if he is obstructionist, he will be humiliated by being fired from the post by the party.

Now let's assume that Arlen Specter makes a public statement to pro-lifers that makes it crystal clear that he WILL support the President's nominees.

Further, let's suppose that the Republican leadership, from the President on down, understands just how angry and upset the pro-life movement is, understands the sense of betrayal, and really makes the outreach effort...sends important people to meet with pro-life leaders and explain the strategy, and promise that everything will be alright.

Now, let's suppose that the President follows up with Specter by sending his whole raft of appellate court re-nominations to Judiciary early next year, and Specter does his part by getting them through committee.

Finally, let's suppose that the Republican leadership in the Senate is really sincere about using the nuclear option to ensure the judges get onto the Appellate Courts and Supreme Court.

If all of that is what happens, then the pro-life cause is advanced dramatically, and babies end up being saved...which is the whole point, right?

In fact, if all of that happens, putting Specter on there will actually HELP the pro-life cause, because there will not be an immediate rupture in the new Senate, and it will be the anti-life Democrats who have to decide whether to filibuster, instead of moderate Republicans back on their heels and deciding whether or not to bolt the party.

All of this almost certainly IS the Republican strategy.
So let me ask you: if folks like Frist and Cheney, or Karl Rove for that matter, reached out and privately met with the pro-life leaders and explained that this was what was afoot, and this was why we have to swallow Specter, haven't they earned our trust enough for us to trust them this one more time? If they betrayed us, we would know soon enough and would have the right to be even angrier.

But when has President Bush broken his word on anything?

All that needs to happen is that the leaders of the Senate, and the White House, need to reach out to pro-life leaders and really lay it out: Specter will not be permitted to block the judges if he is given the gavel, but he will do damage to the pro-life cause if he is denied it. And the White House and Republican Leadership in Congress is going to move aggressively to be sure that the strict-constructionist pro-life judges get their seats.

What if they did these things, and came personally down into the pro-life community and promised this, and asked us to trust them?
Haven't they earned our trust for one last time?

Of course, if they want pro-lifers to swallow Specter, they DO need to swallow their own pride and come down to the pro-lifers hat in hand and really ask for their indulgence and tolerance on this tactic of allowing Specter. They have to really come down and explain it, and reaffirm their committment, and lay out the overall strategy of which Specter is only a part. They can't be coy about it. They are asking pro-lifers to accept an anti-life Senator in a position where he can block everything.
The leadership has earned a free "trust me" card, but if they need to use it on Specter, they need to expend a lot of face time effort with pro-life leaders to explain why.

Simply doing it on high and shaking hands will demoralize the pro-life base, and many will not turn out next time.
That disaster can be averted, maybe, even if Specter gets the chair. But for Heaven's sake! Bush and Cheney, Frist and Santorum and the rest need to be humbly explaining why pro-lifers have to drink this bitter medicine now, and have to lay out how it will give a better result in the short term. "Trust me" without outreach is not going to work. The pro-life answer of many will be "No, we do not trust Arlen Specter. We would be fools to trust Arlen Specter. We trust you, and if you're asking us to abide Specter, then YOU need to come to us and promise, explicitly, that YOU will hold Specter accountable."

Anything less is not going to fly.

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