Specter Spins While Conservatives Turn Up the Heat

by Rusty Pugh and Jody Brown
November 11, 2004

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(AgapePress) - A Michigan pro-family advocate says the people who helped re-elect President Bush do not want a liberal like Arlen Specter to chair a committee that would put a roadblock in front of the president's important judicial nominations.

According to an Associated Press report, a Senate Judiciary Committee member says Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter wants a private meeting with the panel's Republican members to argue his case for becoming chairman. Senator John Cornyn of Texas says pro-life groups have been flooding committee members with objections to Specter taking over for Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, whose term as chairman is ending.

Religious conservatives who voted for President Bush have been enraged by Specter's comment that Roe v. Wade is "inviolate" and the Senate is unlikely to confirm pro-life judges. Some groups plan to protest Specter's possible chairmanship at the Capitol next week.

Specter has been speaking with senators individually to assure them he would not use the chairmanship to block Bush nominees from being voted on by the full Senate. But Cornyn says Specter must publicly give GOP committee members a reason to vote for him to answer the critics.

But in Michigan, the president of a pro-family group says Specter cannot escape his comments, spoken the day after the election, when he warned President Bush not to send up judicial nominees who hold pro-life views. Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan says the senator's attempts to backtrack on those remarks ring hollow.

Gary Glenn

According to Glenn, Specter is a pro-abortion liberal -- and he says the courts will always be filled with pro-abortion, activist judges unless someone does something about it.

"You've heard talk in the past about soccer moms and NASCAR dads?" Glenn asks. "Well, this past election it was 'marriage moms' and 'marriage dads' who turned out to vote -- and the marriage moms and marriage dads who put George Bush back in the White House and Republicans back in control of the United States Senate cannot trust Arlen Specter."

"We don't trust him on legislation to protect the lives of prenatal children," the Michigan activist continues. "We don't trust him on legislation to protect and preserve one man-one woman marriage for our children and grandchildren."

Glenn contends the recently re-elected Pennsylvania senator, who will start his fifth term in January, will be a thorn in the president's side no matter what he says now. That is why his Michigan group is taking action.

"We're urging the Senate Judiciary Committee not to put Arlen Specter in a position where he can single-handedly block all the president's judicial nominees," Glenn says, "and single-handedly block legislation to protect the lives of prenatal children and [legislation to] protect and preserve one man-one woman marriage."

Block Specter Because ...
AFA Michigan is one of many pro-family groups urging the Senate not to permit Specter to move into the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee. Another of those is the Washington, DC-based Family Research Council. FRC president Tony Perkins explains why this issue is important to social conservatives.

Tony Perkins

"It comes down to the simple fact that the chairman of a [Senate] committee controls the schedule, staff, and philosophy of the committee," Perkins says. "The chairman, in setting the schedule and agenda for the committee, can also stop legislation from moving to the full Senate."

It is before the Judiciary Committee that federal judges, nominees to the Supreme Court, and nominees for the position of attorney general are vetted and given or denied a vote before the full Senate, Perkins explains. "And the prospect of Chairman Specter in the Judiciary Committee is a real and present threat to pro-life judges and to pivotal legislation like the marriage amendment," he adds.

According to Perkins, should Specter be allowed to chair that committee, he would wield sufficient influence to obstruct or aid passage of a Federal Marriage Amendment.

"We know Arlen Specter is hostile to pro-life judges, and he has said that he would have voted against the marriage amendment earlier this year if given the opportunity," the FRC president says. "The committee is simply too important for the issues that won elections last week to put in Specter's control."