Embattled senator still vying for judiciary chair

Until last week, the appointment of five-term Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter to the chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee seemed all but wrapped up.

But the nomination may not proceed as smoothly as anticipated after Specter warned President George W. Bush against putting anti-abortion judges on the Supreme Court in his Election Night victory speech.

"When you talk about judges who would change the right of a woman to choose, overturn Roe v. Wade, I think that is unlikely," Specter said, referring to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

The remarks set off a firestorm from conservative groups across the nation.

Many anti-abortion organizations were never content with Specter's stance on the issue -- he voted for the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act, but ultimately believes in most of the fundamental holdings of Roe. The remarks have infuriated those who see the three or more possible vacancies in the tribunal as an opportunity to overturn the decision. Several congressional and activist leaders are calling for removing Specter from consideration as chairman.

"His comments about whether [to have] a nominee that didn't support a woman's right to choose has made that appointment more difficult," Political Science Department Chairman Rogers Smith said. "Specter has made similar comments in the past. I don't think he was cognizant of what kind of a signal it would send."

The senator has since amended his comments, noting that he had always voted for Bush's judicial nominees and would never apply a litmus test on the issue of abortion to a potential judge. He claimed he was actually cautioning the president about Democratic tactics to undermine his nominations.

"In light of the repeated filibusters by the Democrats in the last Senate session, I am concerned about a potential repetition of such filibusters," Specter said in a statement Thursday. Democrats have had success in the last four years obstructing Bush's judicial appointments.

The Judiciary Committee is responsible for holding hearings with the federal judicial nominees to examine their background in law, and then submitting recommendations to the Senate that typically carry a great deal of weight. Assessing a candidate's stance on various issues is, at least in theory, not a part of the process, though many think that the examination of qualifications is only a pretense.

"More and more, [the committee] questions [candidates] on issues," Swarthmore College Political Science professor Carol Nackenoff said. She added that, while Bush would not blatantly insist on an abortion litmus test, he strongly favors conservative judges such as Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, who are both anti-abortion.

Some say that, even if Specter wins the chairmanship, his comments may impede him from expressing his own opinion about the nominees in his recommendations to the Senate, if Republicans force him to remain true to party lines and the moral ideology that supposedly won Bush re-election.

"I think these remarks have made it somewhat unlikely" that he will become chairman, Nackenoff said. "He will only become chair if he gives the administration assurances that he will rubber-stamp Republican nominations."

Yet, considering how high the stakes are in these nominations, it is possible that Specter and the committee's opinions will have less impact on senators, particularly those with ties to groups that take a strong stance on either side of abortion.

"They tend to follow the committee's recommendations," Emory School of Law professor Robert Schapiro said. "But it may be that, for something as high-profile as a Supreme Court nominee, they may reach their own conclusions."

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