[Mb-civic] Specter Likely to Be The Lightning Rod - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Specter Likely to Be The Lightning Rod
Senator Has an Agenda for Judicial Hearing

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 2, 2005; Page A03

Conservatives who have bridled at Arlen Specter's 25-year Senate career 
figured they finally had the Pennsylvania Republican hemmed in this 
summer, as he prepared to chair the first Supreme Court confirmation 
hearing in 11 years.

The proudly independent and unpredictable moderate had inflamed the 
political right by opposing Robert H. Bork in 1987, and he rekindled the 
fire last fall by suggesting that a strongly antiabortion nominee might 
not win Senate confirmation. The ensuing uproar forced him to humbly 
promise party fealty to keep his new post as Judiciary Committee 
chairman. Surely, Republican activists concluded, he would feel 
constrained and circumspect in chairing the hearing for John G. Roberts 
Jr., which opens Tuesday.

In fact, Specter's maverick streak appears as strong as ever. He has 
signaled plans to ask the nominee pointed questions, and he endorsed a 
Democratic call for the Bush administration to release more documents 
related to Roberts. Moreover, Specter says he will use the hearing as a 
forum to rebuke the current Supreme Court -- particularly conservative 
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist -- for "insulting" Congress in 
rulings in which Roberts played no role.

Although Specter is battling Hodgkin's disease at age 75 and is 
approaching a well-publicized hearing that could loom large in his 
political legacy, his penchant for unorthodox stands and surprising 
tactics seems undiminished, according to scholars who watch him.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/01/AR2005090101883.html?nav=hcmodule
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