Results tagged “senatorspecter”

Senator Arlen Specter, reborn as a Democrat, appeared at the White House with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden and said, "I think that I can be of assistance to you, Mr. President. ... There are a lot of big issues we're tackling now that I've been deeply involved in." Specter and Biden are good friends; the NY Times reports that Biden had been pressing Specter about switching parties lately: In the past 10 weeks, "Mr. Biden and Mr. Specter had spoken 14 times — six times in person and eight in telephone conversations. [Each time] Mr. Biden argued that the Republican Party had increasingly drifted away from Mr. Specter since the election and that ideologically, he was closer to the Democratic Party." Today, Obama said, "I don't expect Arlen to be a rubber stamp. In fact, I'd like to think that Arlen's decision reflects recognition that this administration is open to many different ideas and many different points of view... I'm eager to receive his counsel and his advice, especially when he disagrees."

Senator Arlen Specter, the 29-year Senate veteran from Pennsylvania, announced today that he was changing his party affiliation from Republican to Democrat. In a statement, he said, "Since my election in 1980, as part of the Reagan Big Tent, the Republican Party has moved far to the right. 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." One motivating reason: Specter is lagging behind a challenger in the Republican primary. President Obama told Specter, "You have my full support. [We're] thrilled to have you," and now the Democrats have a near-filibuster-proof majority—they'll have it, if Al Franken is ever seated in Minnesota. The GOP, reportedly caught off-guard, is calling an emergency meeting. SFGate points out that Specter's "legacy as former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee was seating [the] two conservative Supreme Court justices...Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito."