[Mb-civic] Specter urges caution for Bush/Discourages nominating anti-abortion judges

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Specter urges caution for Bush
Discourages nominating anti-abortion judges


PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- The Republican expected to chair the Senate 
Judiciary Committee next year bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush on 
Wednesday against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn 
abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation.

Sen. Arlen Specter, fresh from winning a fifth term in Pennsylvania, also said the 
current Supreme Court now lacks legal "giants" on the bench.

"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 president is well aware of what happened, when a number of his nominees were 
sent up, with the filibuster," Specter added, referring to Senate Democrats' success 
over the past four years in blocking the confirmation of many of Bush's conservative 
judicial picks. "... And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations 
which I am mentioning."

With at least three Supreme Court justices rumored to be eyeing retirement, including 
ailing Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Specter, 74, would have broad authority to 
reshape the nation's highest court. He would have wide latitude to schedule hearings, 
call for votes and make the process as easy or as hard as he wants. (Rehnquist absent 
as high court returns)

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee, expressed confidence Wednesday that 
Bush will have more success his second term in winning the confirmation of his judicial 
nominees. (Supreme Court vacancy could come sooner than expected)

"I'm very confident that now we've gone from 51 seats to 55 seats, we will be able to 
overturn this what has become customary filibuster of judicial nominees," Frist said in 
Orlando, Florida.

See where he stands
Legal scholar Dennis Hutchinson said Specter's message to the White House appears 
to be "a way of asserting his authority" as he prepares to chair the Judiciary Committee 
when Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is term-limited from keeping the post next year.

"What he may be trying to do is say, 'Don't just think that I'm going to process what you 
send through. I have standards, I'm going to take an independent look, you have to deal 
with me,"' said Hutchinson, a law professor at the University of Chicago. (Health of the 
justices)

When asked Wednesday about Specter's impending chairmanship, another Republican 
on the panel, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, did not offer a ringing endorsement.

"We'll have to see where he stands," said Cornyn, a close friend of Bush who worked to 
get all of the president's nominees through the Senate. "I'm hoping that he will stand 
behind the president's nominees. I'm intending to sit down and discuss with him how 
things are going to work. We want to know what he's going do and how things are going 
to work."

While Specter is a loyal Republican -- Bush endorsed him in a tight Pennsylvania GOP 
primary -- he routinely crosses party lines to pass legislation and counts a Democrat, 
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, as one of his closest friends.

A self-proclaimed moderate, he helped kill President Reagan's nomination of Robert 
Bork to the Supreme Court and of Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. Specter called 
both nominees too extreme on civil rights issues. Sessions later became a Republican 
senator from Alabama and now sits on the Judiciary Committee with Specter. (Election 
could tip balance)

Despite a bruising challenge from conservatives this year in Pennsylvania's GOP 
primary, Specter won re-election Tuesday by an 11-point margin by appealing to 
moderate Republicans and ticket-splitting Democrats, even as Pennsylvania chose 
Democrat John Kerry over Bush.

A former district attorney, Specter also bemoaned what he called the lack of any current 
justices comparable to legal heavyweights like Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, 
Benjamin Cardozo and Thurgood Marshall, "who were giants of the Supreme Court."

"With all due respect to the (current) U.S. Supreme Court, we don't have one," he said.

Though he refused to describe the political leanings of the high court, Specter said he 
"would characterize myself as moderate; I'm in the political swim. I would look for 
justices who would interpret the Constitution, as Cardozo has said, reflecting the values 
of the people."



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Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.
Find this article at: 
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/04/specter.scotus.ap/index.html  

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