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Specter walks tightrope on Southwick nomination |
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By Alexander Bolton
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Posted: 07/17/07 07:25 PM [ET] |
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) is walking a tightrope above a crowd of angry conservatives and prickly Senate Democrats.
To his right, conservative activists are spoiling for a fight over judicial nominations. To his left, Senate Democrats could bring judicial confirmations to a standstill.
It is a position, caught in between, that Specter is used to, having faced a massive conservative effort to deny him the Judiciary gavel at the beginning of the 109th Congress.
Conservatives are sure Specter told them last week that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) broke a promise to move Leslie Southwick, President Bush’s controversial pick for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, to the Senate floor. Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is one of those prepared to say directly that Leahy did not do what he said he would.
But as ranking Republican on the panel and mindful of his need to work with Leahy, Specter is taking pains in public to finesse the blunt words he used in private to a gathering of steamed-up conservatives.
Sitting next to Leahy at a panel meeting a few days after his comments were reported by The Hill, Specter demurred, saying, “Commitments were not broken, and had commitments by members been broken, I wouldn’t talk to the newspapers about it, I would talk to the members about it.”
That greatly puzzled conservatives who had been at the private meeting. “That’s not what we were told,” said Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council. “I’m confused by Sen. Specter’s remarks. … We were told that Sen. Leahy had made a commitment to Sen. Specter that Judge Southwick would be moved out of committee.”
Some conservatives are alarmed, as they have been before, by the discrepancy between Specter’s public statements and the combative ardor he showed in private. But Specter’s staff is assuring those on the right that he will not back down from a fight.
“One of Specter’s people told me he was trying not to renege on what he had said [in our meeting] but was, instead, trying finesse and soften it,” said Curt Levey, executive director of the Committee for Justice, who also met with Specter.
Specter told The Hill yesterday that he would take to the floor today to lay out the facts about Southwick’s nomination.
“Sen. Leahy told me in advance of a Judiciary Committee hearing that he was going to vote Southwick out [to the floor] on a voice vote,” Specter said, “He moved to do just that and Sen. [Russ] Feingold (D-Wis.) raised an objection. Any senator can hold over a nomination for one week; that is their right and that’s what happened.”
But Specter added that when a senator, especially a chairman, says he will do something, it is implicit that he will deliver.
Even though Leahy did not come through, Specter is cutting his Democratic colleague some slack.“He never used the word ‘promise,’” said Specter. “He said he would vote him out of committee. Perhaps if Leahy had exercised really tremendous care he would have surveyed everyone on the committee — he can’t override Feingold.”
Nevertheless, he took a shot at his chairman, saying, “When I was chairman and said that I was going to do something, I made sure that I had power to do it. My expectation is that he was going to [move Southwick out of committee].”
In the collegial and self-consciously polite environs of the Senate, however, it does not do to suggest that a powerful lawmaker has broken his or her word. One does not, in Shakespeare’s formulation, go all the way to the “lie direct.”
“I don’t like to charge someone of breaking their commitment and breaking their word; that inflames people,” said Specter.
“The facts are that Sen. Leahy said he would move [Southwick] out on a voice vote and he didn’t because he couldn’t. I’m not going to charge Leahy with bad faith, but that’s what happened.”
Specter has walked fine political lines before. In 1999, he found a position between judging President Clinton guilty or not guilty of impeachable offenses. Invoking Scottish law, he voted that the charges were “not proven,” an option few if any of his colleagues had thought to consider.
Politics is a blunter instrument in the hands of Specter’s colleagues. Other Republicans pushing Southwick’s nomination haven’t shied away from claiming that Leahy broke his word.
“He unequivocally committed to me; he said he would get him out of committee by Memorial Day,” said Lott. “He just said, ‘We’ll get him out of committee,’ and it wasn’t qualified.”
Asked whether Leahy broke his commitment on the judge, Lott said: “I don’t see any other way to say it.”
But Specter thinks it’s easier for Lott to hammer Leahy. “Lott doesn’t mince any words,” he said. “Of course, he doesn’t have to deal with Leahy every day.”
For his part, Leahy says he’s willing to work with Republicans and that Southwick has been delayed because of Republicans.
“Chairman Leahy has worked in good faith with senators on both sides of the aisle on this nomination and will continue to do so,” said Leahy’s spokeswoman, Tracy Schmaler. “The committee was prepared to take a vote on Judge Southwick’s nomination several weeks ago when a Republican request was made that the nomination be removed from the agenda.
Chairman Leahy accommodated that Republican request and has not heard from any senator since that time asking the nomination be placed back on the committee’s agenda.”
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