Arlen Specter Keeps Battling
By CBS News' Steve Chaggaris
In his first Capitol Hill news conference since undergoing treatment for Hodgkin's disease, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., focused Thursday on the ongoing fight over federal judicial nominees, but he couldn't avoid talking about his health.
"My doctors tell me that it is an ailment that is fully curable," said Specter, who was showing no obvious ill effects from last Friday's chemotherapy.
If there's any doubt that a 75-year-old with an advanced lymphatic cancer who works in a high-stress job won't overcome his latest medical and political battles, consider this:
In his role as Judiciary chairman, Specter pointed out that his committee was "off to a very fast start," expediting the nomination of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and getting bills on bankruptcy and class-action lawsuit reform onto the Senate floor. (The Senate passed the class-action measure last week.)
But the biggest issue Specter will deal with as chairman is shepherding through the Senate a dozen judicial nominees President Bush resubmitted to the committee. During the last Congress, Democrats blocked the nominations by filibuster for various reasons, mainly ideological.
Specter announced Thursday that the committee would proceed with the least controversial nominees first, beginning with a hearing for William Myers next Tuesday. Specter claimed that Myers has at least 58 votes in the full Senate, two shy of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.
Some of Specter's fellow Republicans have hit the boiling point with the Democrats' use of the filibuster, calling it a "crisis" and accusing Democrats of abusing the system.
In comments that may not please the conservative activists who already dislike Specter, he took the middle ground and blamed the current situation on both parties.
Specter pointed out that the problem started in the Reagan years when Democrats were in control of Congress; then it escalated during President Clinton's second term when the Republicans took over the Senate.
"So each side ratcheted it up, ratcheted it up, ratcheted it up, until you have a situation today where it might actually be characterized as no one wants to back down and no one wants to lose face."
Republicans are now threatening to invoke a parliamentary procedure - the so-called "nuclear option" - which would eliminate the 60-vote requirement to end a filibuster.
While not publicly endorsing the nuclear option, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., complained last week that Democrats "for the first time in history" have used filibusters to block "what the majority want to do." He added he thought that "is wrong when it comes to judicial nominees."
But Specter, again potentially angering his detractors on the right, spoke out vehemently against the nuclear option, saying, "If we have a nuclear option, the Senate will be in turmoil and the Judiciary Committee will be hell."
"I'm going to exercise every ounce of my energy to solve this problem without the nuclear option," he said.
As for his energy, Specter is not worried that his current cancer battle will weaken him much.
"I had a treatment last Friday. That's supposed to be the toughest treatment. Felt reasonably well over the weekend," Specter said.
"I have a lot of stamina," he continued, "I expect to be able to do the job I always have."
By Steve Chaggaris