Major unions, pro-choice, pro-gay rights and environmental groups, as well as supporters of scientific research have backed him over the years. It was not just that Specter voted right now and again, he maintained amiable relations with these groups, as well as with civil liberties organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union.
Posted on The Nation on 04/28/2009 @ 11:41am
Arlen Specter started his political life as a liberal Democrat.
And now the senior senator from Pennsylvania is returning to the fold.
Specter, who has served five terms in the Senate as the last of the old-school Rockefeller Republicans, has finally given up on his long, fruitless quest to revive the spirit of east-coast liberalism within what has become a hard-right party.
"Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right," the senator explained in a statement announcing his decision to leave the GOP fold. "Last year, more than 200,000 Republicans in Pennsylvania changed their registration to become Democrats. I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans.
U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania, is now U.S. Senator Arlen Specter, D-Pennsylvania.
The big news, of course, is that with Specter's move Democrats will have 59 members in their Senate caucus (57 Democrats and independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut). And the prospect that Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate Al Franken will soon take the seat he won in last fall's Minnesota voting means that the Specter switch should give the Democrats the 60 seats they need to avert GPO filibusters of legislation and appointments.
For the Obama administration and the Democrats, Specter party switch is the most dramatic development since the election.
The senator's motivations for switching are no mystery.
Specter, who was a liberal Democratic lawyer in Phildelphia in the 1960s before accepting a GOP nomination for district attorney as part of a reform-movement battle to break the city's Democratic machine, has long been the most left-leaning member of the Republican caucus in the chamber. He was targeted for defeat by conservatives -- led by the Wall Street-funded Club for Growth -- in 2004. President Bush and other key Republicans defended him that year, not out of love for Specter but because they did not want to lose a seat representing a blue state.
After he backed the economic stimulus plan that all House Republicans and most Senate Republicans opposed, Specter became the top target of the Republican right. Former Congressman Pat Toomey, who narrowly lost the 2004 Pennsylvania primary to Specter, announced that he would again challenge the senator in 2010; and GOP chair Michael Steele sent conflicting signals about whether the incumbent would have the party's support next year.
At the same time, top Democrats -- led by Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator from neighboring Delaware, and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell, a former Democratic National Committee chair -- have been actively lobbying Specter to change his party affiliation.
Specter's first test will come on the issue of the Employee Free Choice Act. Despite a history of working closely with labor -- and enjoying union backing in key contests -- the Pennsylvania senator sided with Republicans in saying he would support a filibuster to block the pro-labor legislation.
Presumably, the party switch will free Specter from the pressure to maintain his credibility -- and fund-raising prospects with big business interests -- by blocking labor law reforms that he knows are necessary. The senator says now that his position on EFCA is unchanged, but don't take him too seriously.
Watch for the newest Democrat to be at the center of a move to tinker with the measure just enough to secure not just his vote but that of straying Democratic senators such as Arkansan Blanche Lincoln. (In fact, while Specter will need some cover for an EFCA switch, it will undoubtedly be easier to bring him over than Lincoln.)
And watch for Specter to start flying his liberal flag on a number of high-profile issues.
Specter was closely tied to Americans for Democratic Action, the liberal activist group, in his early campaigns as a Republican. The Philadelphia ADA backed his early campaigns on the Republican line.
Major unions, pro-choice, pro-gay rights and environmental groups, as well as supporters of scientific research have backed him over the years. It was not just that Specter voted right now and again, he maintained amiable relations with these groups, as well as with civil liberties organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union.
The fact of those relationships destroyed his prospects as a GOP presidential contender in 1996. But they form the basis for the presumption that Specter will finish his career not as a cautiously moderate senator from Pennsylvania but as a reasonably liberal Democrat. The top issue the senator highlighted in announcing his party switch was his passion for expanding funding of medical research. "NIH funding has saved or lengthened thousands of lives, including mine, and much more needs to be done," said Specter, indicating a determination to become the chamber's leader in the fight to make real Obama's inaugural promise to restore science to its proper place in policy and funding debates.
Democrats who like to hate Republicans and Republicans who like to hate Democrats will misread Specter's declaration that: "My change in party affiliation does not mean that I will be a party-line voter any more for the Democrats that I have been for the Republicans." And there will be Pennsylvania Democrats who ponder mounting primary challenges to the incumbent. A challenge would be appropriate, if only to police Specter on EFCA, but it is unlikely to get very far.
Why?
Specter will break from the Democrats now and again.
But don't be surprised if the breaks are to the left rather than the right.
Why the confidence that the senator is returning not just to the Democratic Party but to his liberal roots?
Consider Specter's very good article in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books.
Headlined "The Need to Roll Back Presidential Power Grabs," the article begins:
In the seven and a half years since September 11, the United States has witnessed one of the greatest expansions of executive authority in its history, at the expense of the constitutionally mandated separation of powers. President Obama, as only the third sitting senator to be elected president in American history, and the first since John F. Kennedy, may be more likely to respect the separation of powers than President Bush was. But rather than put my faith in any president to restrain the executive branch, I intend to take several concrete steps, which I hope the new president will support.
First, I intend to introduce legislation that will mandate Supreme Court review of lower court decisions in suits brought by the ACLU and others that challenge the constitutionality of the warrantless wiretapping program authorized by President Bush after September 11. While the Supreme Court generally exercises discretion on whether it will review a case, there are precedents for Congress to direct Supreme Court review on constitutional issues--including the statutes forbidding flag burning and requiring Congress to abide by federal employment laws--and I will follow those.
Second, I will reintroduce legislation to keep the courts open to suits filed against several major telephone companies that allegedly facilitated the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program. Although Congress granted immunity to the telephone companies in July 2008, this issue may yet be successfully revisited since the courts have not yet ruled on the legality of the immunity provision. My legislation would substitute the government as defendant in place of the telephone companies. This would allow the cases to go forward, with the government footing the bill for any damages awarded.
Further, I will reintroduce my legislation from 2006 and 2007 (the "Presidential Signing Statements Act") to prohibit courts from relying on, or deferring to, presidential signing statements when determining the meaning of any Act of Congress. These statements, sometimes issued when the president signs a bill into law, have too often been used to undermine congressional intent. Earlier versions of my legislation went nowhere because of the obvious impossibility of obtaining two-thirds majorities in each house to override an expected veto by President Bush. Nevertheless, in the new Congress, my legislation has a better chance of mustering a majority vote and being signed into law by President Obama.
To understand why these steps are so important, one must appreciate an imbalance in our "checks and balances" that has become increasingly evident in recent years. I witnessed firsthand, during many of the battles over administration policy since September 11, how difficult it can be for Congress and the courts to rally their members against an overzealous executive.
Specter concludes the article by declaring that: "These experiences have crystallized for me the need for Congress and the courts to reassert themselves in our system of checks and balances. The bills I have outlined are important steps in that process. Equally important is vigorous congressional oversight of the executive branch. This oversight must extend well beyond the problems of national security, especially as we cede more and more authority over our economy to government officials."
If he follows through on his pledge to take up the cause of the American Civil Liberties Union and the defenders of our much-diminished freedoms, Specter will be be aligned just with the Democrats. He will emerge as a member in good standing of the wing of the Democratic party defined by his Judiciary Committee colleague Russ Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who is the chamber's most progressive member.
Authors Bio:
John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Online Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.
Nichols writes about politics for The Nation magazine as its Washington correspondent. He is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times, the daily newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune and dozens of other newspapers.
Nichols is a frequent guest on radio and television programs as a commentator on politics and media issues. He was featured in Robert Greenwald's documentary, "Outfoxed," and in the documentaries Joan Sekler's "Unprecedented," Matt Kohn's "Call It Democracy" and Robert Pappas' "Orwell Rolls in his Grave." The keynote speaker at the 2004 Congress of the International Federation of Journalists in Athens, Nichols has been a featured presenter at conventions, conferences and public forums on media issues sponsored by the Federal Communications Commission, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Consumers International, the Future of Music Coalition, the AFL-CIO, the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, the Newspaper Guild [CWA] and dozens of other organizations.
Nichols is the author of the upcoming book The Genius of Impeachment (The New Press), as well as a critically-acclaimed analysis of the Florida recount fight of 2000, Jews for Buchanan (The New Press) and a best-selling biography of Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick: The Man Who is President (The New Press), which has recently been published in French and Arabic. He edited Against the Beast: A Documentary History of American Opposition to Empire (Nation Books), of which historian Howard Zinn said: "At exactly the time when we need it most, John Nichols gives us a special gift--a collection of writings, speeches, poems, and songs from throughout American history--that reminds us that our revulsion to war and empire has a long and noble tradition in this country."
With Robert W. McChesney, Nichols has co-authored the books, It's the Media, Stupid! (Seven Stories), Our Media, Not Theirs (Seven Stories) and Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy (The New Press). McChesney and Nichols are the co-founders of Free Press, the nation's media-reform network, which organized the 2003 and 2005 National Conferences on Media Reform.
Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal says: "Of all the giant slayers now afoot in the great American desert, John Nichols's sword is the sharpest."