Attorney Urges Opposition to Specter's Judiciary Committee Leadership
by Jenni Parker and Allie Martin
November 10, 2004
(AgapePress) - An attorney with the Center for Law & Policy says Senator Arlen Specter's comments regarding the threat of filibuster and defeat of President Bush's judicial nominees should not be tolerated.The Pennsylvania senator, who is in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, has become the center of a firestorm of controversy due to certain post-election comments. Almost immediately after Bush's victory, Specter made remarks that many conservatives have interpreted as suggesting he would resist any of the president's judicial nominees that oppose abortion or are otherwise "too conservative."
News reports have portrayed Specter's statements as a warning to President Bush, but the Pennsylvania senator took exception to the media's characterization of his comments. He has since tried to clarify them, stating on November 4 that, "Contrary to press accounts, I did not warn the President about anything and was very respectful of his Constitutional authority on the appointment of federal judges."
Nevertheless, the November 3 comments continue to haunt Specter. On that date the Republican senator, fresh from his narrow re-election to a fifth term in Pennsylvania, noted that the current Supreme Court bench lacks any legal "giants" and said he thinks it "unlikely" that any of the sitting justices would "change the right of a woman to choose" by overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
Associated Press went on to quote Specter as saying that President Bush is "well aware of what happened" previously when he sent conservative nominees up for confirmation, alluding to Senate Democrats' successful filibusters blocking Bush's judicial picks over the last four years. Specter said he would expect the president, in choosing his future nominees, "to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."
Reports of this apparent "warning" to Bush generated an immediate and vehement backlash from the overlapping pro-life, pro-family, and conservative Christian communities. A number of groups and individuals have voiced their displeasure with Specter, saying his remarks demonstrate a bias against pro-life and conservative nominees that make him an unacceptable candidate for head of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Values Voters Encouraged to Call in Their Marker
Steve Crampton of the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy is among those who believe Specter should not be allowed to head that committee. The Center's lead counsel says the same Americans who turned out to help re-elect their pro-life president must now demand that the senator be removed from consideration as head of the Senate body that will confirm or reject Bush's judicial nominees.
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Steve Crampton |
"It is critical," Crampton asserts, "that we have a man in that position that reflects both the president's philosophy and that of the majority of this nation on the issue of what constitutes an appropriate candidate for the judiciary." Crampton describes Specter as "notoriously out of step with the conservatives who elected him."The attorney says even though Specter did not unequivocally state in his initial comments that he would oppose a pro-life judicial nominee, and although he has since said he would never apply a litmus test in the confirmation process, it is difficult to interpret the senator's reminder about filibusters and reiteration of his own view that "Roe v. Wade is inviolate" as anything other than a litmus test. In light of this, the AFA Law Center spokesman feels it would be a grave mistake to let the likes of Arlen Specter assume a position of ultimate influence.
Crampton insists that the values voters who gave Bush such a decisive victory in November must not let Specter's potential election to the Judiciary Committee go unchallenged now. "It simply cannot be tolerated," he says, "especially under the circumstances that you have here, where the world acknowledges -- we're talking the foreign press, the Democrats, the New York Times, the Washington Post, everyone knows -- that President Bush's overwhelming re-election was due primarily to the conservative Christian and religious base. Arlen Specter's comments and his whole philosophy [are] antithetical to everything that we believe in."
According to the pro-family attorney, there is arguably no more important issue in American government than the appointment of federal judges who will remain true to the U.S. Constitution. Therefore, he says, it is high time the conservative, faith-based "values voters" who have invested so much in the Republican Party "collected on their long overdue IOU" by insisting on Specter's removal from consideration.
Crampton notes that while Specter was openly questioning President Bush's wisdom in selecting nominees, Bush was confirming his intention to nominate candidates who know "the difference between personal opinion and strict interpretation of the law." In other words, the attorney says, the president has every intention of remaining true to his stated goal of appointing judges who practice judicial restraint rather than activism.
