Specter Weighed in Conservative Balance, Found Wanting
by Bill Fancher and Jenni Parker
November 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - Protests are mounting as conservatives challenge Senator Arlen Specter's efforts to win the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee.
Specter has been under fire for his recent remarks that many believe implied a warning to President Bush not to send any pro-life judicial nominees to the Judiciary Committee for confirmation. Now the Pennsylvania senator is facing angry conservatives at almost every turn.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, has noted a major development in the battle to block the abortion-supporting lawmaker's bid for chairmanship of the Senate body that will review and confirm or oppose Bush's judicial nominees. Perkins says the silence of Specter's colleagues was broken on Fox News Sunday, when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist expressed doubts about having Specter in that key position.
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Tony Perkins |
The FRC spokesman says Frist outlined what he expects from the Judiciary Committee chairman, a list of qualities that included "a strong disposition" to support the President's nominees, as well as an accountability to the other Republican committee members and a commitment to do everything possible to get an up-or-down vote on each nominee."Clearly, the implication from the Frist interview is that the Republican leader does not have full confidence in Senator Specter," Perkins says. Pointing out that Specter will be meeting with other committee members during this critical week, the pro-family leader says it is time the other GOP senators stood against Specter's chairmanship claim and "his arrogance in demanding a pro-abortion litmus test."
Perkins feels the Pennsylvania Republican has provided an open door for his colleagues to question his fitness for the Senate committee chairmanship, and now, he asserts, "it is time for them to walk through it." Meanwhile, the FRC president is encouraging citizens to contact Republican members of the Judiciary Committee to express opposition to Specter.
Pro-Life Rabbi Casts Doubts on Specter's Word
A number of pro-life leaders are likewise incensed against Specter. Orthodox Jewish Rabbi Yehuda Levin was one of many pro-lifers who demonstrated outside a Manhattan hotel last night as the senator addressed New York's "Monday Group" dinner.
"Arlen Specter is the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time," Levin says. "He has made it clear that he agrees with revisionist judges who ignore the original intent of America's founding fathers, and instead they substitute their own intent."
The Jewish leader believes Specter's support of these judicial activists' intent is wrong, as is the senator's own intent. "He wants judges on the bench who will advance his corrupt agenda of abortion on demand, radical homosexual rights, tax increases, and really the rape of America's constitutional liberties," he says.
In Levin's estimation, Specter is all wrong to head the committee, no matter what the pro-abortion Republican says. "He never really explains how he met with the editorial board of a Pennsylvania newspaper and promised them that he would, in effect, support any judges that stand for traditional family values," he says. Still in light of the past, the rabbi tends to eye with suspicion all of Specter's latest claims that he was not warning Bush of anything and has no intention of opposing the president's judicial nominees.
Levin joined a prayer meeting that was organized to take place Tuesday (November 16) at noon outside Senate majority leader Bill Frist's office. Participants gathered to pray that Specter does not get the Judiciary Committee chairmanship.
