Posted on 01/26/2005 8:12:25 AM PST by Jean S
In less than a month, new Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has already exasperated social conservatives and frightened members of the business community with controversial staff hires, statements and policy positions.
The start of Specter’s tenure as chairman, following a blow-up last year over public comments he made questioning the confirmation of anti-abortion-rights judicial nominees, may augur a rocky future for Specter, whom many conservatives dislike for being too centrist.
But despite their concerns, leading conservatives say they will suspend final judgment on Specter until he is given a chance to manage the confirmation proceedings of President Bush’s court nominees.
Activists on the right are buzzing about two recent controversial hires by Specter: Hannibal Kemerer, a former assistant general counsel with the NAACP, and Carolyn Short, who is married to Joe Torsella, who ran as a Democrat in Pennsylvania for Congress. Specter hired both to serve as counsels on the committee.
Especially irksome to conservatives is a report filed with the Federal Election Commission showing that Short donated $500 to Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) 2000 campaign.
And many conservatives view the NAACP as overtly partisan. Departing from the tradition of past presidents, Bush had refused to meet with the group because of its ties to Democrats.
“Obviously the NAACP has not been in the president’s corner in the past,” said Connie Mackey, vice president of government affairs for the Family Research Council, a conservative group active on judicial issues. “So someone who was an assistant general counsel for them is questionable from the start. It needs to be looked into.”
“This raises grave concerns,” said Kay Daly, the head of the Coalition for a Fair Judiciary, another conservative group that advocates for Bush’s nominees.
Activists on the right are suspicious of the NAACP because of the apparent attempt by a lobbyist with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to influence a 6th Circuit appellate decision on affirmative action by delaying the confirmation of conservative Julia Gibbons to that circuit court.
Short’s work for her husband’s campaign and her contribution to Clinton yesterday drew barbs on a blog hosted by National Review Online, a conservative website.
A Judiciary Committee spokesman defended the hires. The spokesman said that Kemerer was “hired because of his strong litigation experience,” noting that Kemerer is “not doing nominations; he’s in the civil division.”
“The senator thinks it’s a complement to have a diverse staff, and these are people hired on merit in a fair and equitable manner,” the spokesman said.
The hires have also drawn the ire of other Senate Republicans.
“The fact that Republican money is being used to hire hardcore leftists to work on the Judiciary Committee is just a travesty,” a GOP aide said.
Conservatives who view the battle over the makeup of the federal judiciary as their most important priority were also dismayed about Specter’s apparent criticism of Bush’s decision to renominate immediately appellate court nominees whom Democrats had blocked with filibusters.
Specter told The Washington Post last month that he “would have preferred there would have been an interlude before they were resubmitted to provide an opportunity to improve the climate on the Judiciary Committee.”
However, that runs squarely counter to the desires of conservatives who want Senate Republicans, who expanded their majority by four seats, to confront Democrats immediately on the stalled nominees.
Senate Democrats have asked for new hearings on the resubmitted nominees, something conservatives criticize as an unnecessary delaying tactic. For his part, Specter has not taken a position on whether he will hold new hearings for the recycled nominees.
A GOP committee aide defended Specter’s desire not to take up immediately the nominees whom Democrats stopped in the last Congress as an effort to heal raw relationships on the committee.
“Senator Specter looks to accomplish a lot this session and tone down the hostile atmosphere that existed, not only in the committee, and have a well-founded relationship with the White House,” said the aide.
Business allies of the GOP, such as manufacturers and insurers, are worried about aspects of draft legislation on asbestos litigation reform that Specter has proposed. Industry officials are concerned that Specter would allow asbestos claims in certain circumstances to be settled in court, instead of through a proposed trust fund, exposing them to costly lawsuits.
For example, Specter has proposed that if the fund runs short of money claims would be settled in state court, where business allies say awards are often excessive and trial lawyers have greater influence over judges. Craig Berrington, the general counsel of American Insurance Association, testified before the Judiciary Committee earlier this month about his worry that Specter’s draft would not make the trust fund the exclusive remedy to claims.
Privately, Senate Republicans have also expressed their disappointment.
“It’s a terrible bill,” a GOP aide said. “Republicans are not happy.”
Late last fall, when Senate Republicans had contemplated denying Specter the Judiciary Committee gavel because of strong opposition from conservatives, then-spokesman Charles Robbins defended his boss’s record on asbestos reform.
“On asbestos, Senator Specter worked longer and harder than anyone to get the parties involved together, and for those efforts he was recognized by the Chamber of Commerce,” Robbins told The Hill.
We only WISH he was too centrist - Flaming Leftist is more like it, (even under "Scottish Law").
I'm ashamed Sphincter's from my state.
No he's not. He's just another carpetbager.
Its an outrage ! But it was predicted on this page months ago.
You're just figuring this out now?
Very Eloquent! I agree wholeheartedly!
I can't believe the leadership let him have that chairmanship. They thought that he would be far left on abortion but far right on everything else??? They're morons then. We knew he wouldn't be.
Why bother to have a R majority in the Senate if we're just going to populate the leadership and chairmanships with leftys or SPINELESS, SQUISHY MODERATES??? I WANT FOAMING AT THE MOUTH RABID, RADICAL CONSERVATIVES IN THE LEADERSHIP!!!
Now they're going to require several bundles of dynamite to blast him out of that chairmanship. I could have told them THAT as well!
What a cluster****
It means that they have been duped by the Party and more by W, Rove and the leadership who intend to keep the judiciary messed up and really are not going to take any of the lost tenets of the Constitution back.
Those of us who did not subscribe to the view of the opposition that W is stupid or inept now must recognize that what is happening is what was quite deliberately intended to happen, perhaps even planned.
I've read over and over how much of a scoundrel Spectre is. Can anybody tell me what will the GOP do about him? This is way over the line.
Dissappointment was the first thought when I heard Bush and Santoram was backing Spectre. But this is the ultimate stab in the back, hiring the 'architects' of a strategy to delay confirmation of judges.
This stinks and looks really bad.
Whatever, God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen
He's no enemy of the Democrats. When he realized he was in trouble for re-election, he sold out to the Democrats. He had unions instruct their members to re-register as Republicans so they could vote for him in the primary against Toomey, made a deal with Rendell and the Senate Democrats to starve hapless Hoeffel of campaign funds, made a deal with the left-wing papers in Philly and P'burgh to get their endorsements, etc. in exchange for carrying the Democrat water after he was re-elected and installed by the stupid party as the chairman of Judiciary. Now we can sit back and watch Arlen repay the Democrats what he promised to deliver.
If I have figured this out, what does that say for the Republican senators or the White House? Looks to me like they are only too willing to go along to get along and just maybe Arlen is carrying water for them as well as the Democrats.
Oh! That explains this whole mess. Conservatives think it is their money, not the people's money. Not one Republican Senator or party spokesman has come out and voiced their "anger" at Specter. The story is diaper fill. It is scary to see how easy it is to push the buttons of the right fringe without actual quotes or attributions.
What will the right fringe do when Dubya's judges sail through? Moveon.org to another fake story...just like when their sky-is-falling-Dubya-wants-to-extend-the-AWB ranting was proven to be diaper fill. They conveniently forget that they are always wrong and turn up the volume of their screeching.
Well, I was all for MY senator, Jon Kyl, heading up the senate judiciary committee - but NOOOOO, somebody cut a deal way back in the primaries to keep this lOSER onboard...I was really hoping the democrat in PA would win over Spector! Atleast, he'd been out on his can and not doing THIS stuff to us...
HAH!
Snort!
snort again...
Gag.
Whoa, that hurt...
I'm with YOU, Princess.
I hope that President Bush, Karl Rove and Rick Santorum are pleased with themselves. "Putting a moderate Republican" on the ticket in Pennsylvania was supposed to be the "only way" that President Bush "had a chance" to win Pennsylvania.
Well, they cut the legs out from under Toomey, lost Pennsylvania by five points, and now everyone in D.C is apparently outraged that Specter is doing what leftists do - making life difficult for anyone remotely pro-life and pro-family.
And when Specter causes more trouble and booby traps Bush's nominees, Bush and Rove will have no one to blame but themselves.
Sorry if I sound bitter (really I'm not) but the GOP continually, repeatedly, makes the same mistakes over and over again.
Well, one wonders if the Republicans will be scratching their heads in 2008 when a large number of the constituency they're supposed to represent say, " Maybe we'll just sit this one out. "
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