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Specter is reason amid the rancor

Republican Arlen Specter tells both sides to put aside partisanship and work for a filibuster compromise.

By WES ALLISON
Published May 19, 2005

WASHINGTON - When the fight over judicial filibusters formally reached the Senate floor Wednesday morning, the Republican and Democratic leaders opened debate by trading warnings of doom should the other side win.

Then Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., took the lectern. Three months of chemotherapy have cost him his hair, and he looked wan and thin. His voice, already soft, was softer still.

But he kept intact his place as a flinty maverick: In an acerbic speech crammed with the history of judicial fights spanning his 25 years in office, he chided Republicans and Democrats alike for the current impasse, and repeatedly urged them to cast off the "straitjacket of party loyalty" to break it.

Even as he fights lymphatic cancer, Specter remains at the center of some of the most contentious battles on Capitol Hill. He has emerged as the most critical voice for compromise, bluntly blaming both parties for choosing politics and grandstanding over good governance.

"Both sides claim that they are the victims, and that their party's nominees have been treated worse than the other's," said Specter, 75. "Both sides cite endless statistics. I have heard so many numbers spun so many different ways that my head is spinning."

Democrats have used the threat of endless debate to block 10 of President Bush's nominees to U.S. appeals courts. The president has renominated seven of them. Democrats have threatened to block them again, and Republicans responded by threatening to change the rules.

On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist brought the first of the contested jurists, Priscilla Owen, to the Senate floor for two days of debate.

As chairman of the judiciary committee, Specter is responsible for shepherding the nominees to the Senate floor. Diagnosed in February with Hodgkin's disease, he receives chemotherapy at the University of Pennsylvania every other week. The treatment is expected to end in late July, and his oncologist has said he has a good chance of recovery.

Aides and friends say he feels much better than he looks. He works 12- to 16-hour days, and starts most mornings with a 6 a.m. squash game. On Wednesday, he was in his Capitol Hill office by 7, then led a Judiciary Committee meeting at 8:30. An hour later he was on the Senate floor.

He praised Owen, a Texas Supreme Court justice, as a sharp jurist who would have been easily confirmed if not for the partisan rancor that has been building for 20 years.

He said Republicans and Democrats should vote their conscience, not their party. Republican leaders then should be prepared to lose one or two nominees, in return for a promise by the Democrats to use the filibuster only in "extraordinary circumstances."

Several moderate senators from both parties, including Specter, are working toward such a compromise. Barring a deal, a vote on whether to change the filibuster rule is expected early next week.

"If one side realistically and sincerely takes the high ground, there will be tremendous pressure on the other side to follow suit," Specter said. "So far, the offers by both sides have been public relations maneuvers to appear reasonable, to avoid blame and place it elsewhere."

If the rule change passes, the traditional rights of the minority would be substantially diminished, a fundamental tenet of the Senate, he said. That's what Democrats say.

But the Democrats have used the filibuster to block nominees like never before, he said. If the change fails, Democrats would be emboldened to filibuster any nominee, regardless of cause. That's what many Republicans say.

Specter said it's best if it never comes to that.

"Historically, the constitutional separation of powers has worked best when there is a little play in the so-called joints," Specter said. "When both sides are unsure of the outcome, the result is more likely to be in the middle rather than at either extreme."

Specter himself is a denizen of the middle, which has frequently put him at odds with the conservative wing of his party.

Specter favors legal abortion, and he narrowly escaped defeat in last year's Republican primary by a conservative congressman who had strong support from antiabortion and evangelical groups.

Conservatives also nearly derailed his ascension to the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee this year. Republicans elected him only after he acknowledged that as chairman, he may sometimes have to shun his own views for sake of the president's more conservative judicial nominees.

By arguing Wednesday for compromise, conservatives said he was failing to keep his bargain. A former Philadelphia district attorney, Specter has a history of irking both sides. He voted against Ronald Reagan's first Supreme Court nominee, Robert Bork, who was vilified by liberals, but supported another archconservative, Clarence Thomas.

During the Clinton administration, when the Republican-led Senate blocked 70 of the president's judicial nominees, mainly in committee, Specter argued for allowing votes on qualified judges.

"He's been willing to take unpopular positions, and it seems like they're principally based on principle," said Carl Tobias, an expert in federal courts and judicial selection at the University of Richmond School of Law, and the author of a recent article, "Sen. Specter: Survivor."

"I think to his credit, during the time he's been chairman of judiciary, he's been trying mightily to affect some kind of reasonable compromise."

Specter's assessment that both sides are to blame is rare in such a partisan battle, and puts him at odds with Republican leaders and the White House, Tobias said.

Specter has been the target of competing print and TV ads in Pennsylvania, urging support for and against the filibuster. He noted that sourly before yielding the floor Wednesday, offering one more dig at the way both sides are trying to use the issue for political gain, and one more testament to his independence: "Believe me, they are counterproductive, or ineffectual at best."

[Last modified May 19, 2005, 01:00:43]