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Specter Opposes Johnsen
At his press conference just now, Sen. Arlen Specter (RD-PA) had a brief answer to the question of whether he now supported Dawn Johnsen's nomination to be chief of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. In short, no.
Now, there's a familiar vagueness to the question, and therefore to the answer. Specter said he "opposes" Johnsen, but, as with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), that doesn't mean he'll vote to filibuster her nomination. We'll get a clearer answer on that question as soon as possible.
Late update: Specter's staff has no updates on the senator's position on cloture, but more details could be forthcoming soon.
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Josh
Matt
Eric
This press conference is amazing... he is basically creating ads to be used against him in a primary by a liberal.
April 28, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Right. Its understandable for Specter not to want to be an automatic vote on cloture, but he needs to understand the he's not an automatic victor in the Democratic primary either. As a Pennsylvania voter, I'm ready to support him, but he needs to give me something to secure my primary vote, and Johnsen seems like the right place to start.
April 28, 2009 2:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
well the DSCC made it a lot easier for him by promising not to support any real democrats in the primary.
genius move. now we have ZERO leverage to get him to move on EFCA or even cloture on any of the other things we need 60 dems for...
April 28, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not so sure about that. We're at the point where the grassroots is able to organize and execute primary challenges all by itself, without any help from the party, even in opposition to the party.
April 28, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
That seems fair to me. Its just treating him as any other incumbent Democrat. After all, the DSCC exists to help re-elect incumbent Democrats. As mcc points out, I don't think that DSCC support guarantees him a primary victory.
April 28, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's definitely the case cloture is all that matters here.
If he won't at least vote for cloture, though... well, maybe Torsella needs to start pressuring him to fall in line the way Toomey was up until today.
Incidentally, why is Specter opposed to Johnsen in the first place? He's pro-choice and he's... well, better on civil liberties issues than the average Republican.
April 28, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't miss the BEST answer!
Specter just laid waste to the Teabagged GOP....a litany against the Club for Growth...he surprised himself. Realizing how powerful the answer was, he thanked the questioner
April 28, 2009 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
If he wants to vote against Johnsen in a meaningless fashion, and he votes for cloture, then I'm all for it.
April 28, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a jerk.
April 28, 2009 2:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem isn't Specter, it's Reid.
April 28, 2009 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's Reid and everyone that voted for him to be Majority Leader.
April 28, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Agreed. Because if only we could primary Reid out of his seat and get him replaced by a Republican, all the Democratic senators would totally vote for a new leader who they thought would constantly browbeat them to do stuff they thought was against their own political best interests.
April 28, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, if he won't vote on cloture for Card Check and he won't vote for Johnsen, what exactly was everyone so pumped up about a couple of hours ago?
April 28, 2009 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wellll, he hasn't foreclosed voting for cloture on Johnson yet. And I'm pretty sure there will be one or two other votes of some trifling importance sometime before the next Congress.
April 28, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well look at your own language on the EFCA. You're calling it "card check". That's the Republicans language on the bill, which means that they have done a VERY effective job of pushing that meme. Unfortunately, that also means changes have to be made. The derogatory "card check" statement that you and at a news conference, Senator REID used, means that it has to be altered. If Sen. Specter is part of a group that makes some minor alterations while maintaining the spirit of the bill, then I am all for it. But he also has to demonstrate that he is with the democrats on other key issues, and on health care that makes him VERY important.
As for Johnsen, I'm not willing to attack him unless he votes against cloture, and I don't think he's willing to do that.
April 28, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
so he's not going to vote for efca, not even for cloture, and he's not going to support our nominees or even allow them to come to a vote.
i gotta ask: how is he NOT STILL A REPUBLICAN IN EVERYTHING BUT NAME?
April 28, 2009 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn, people, do you all really expect him to say "I hereby repudiate everything I've claimed to stand for for the last 29 years and am now doing an about face on every issue" in his very first news post-switch conference? He's a member of Congress. He's got to at least go through the motions of pretending to have some personal integrity and honest convictions, even if everyone knows its a crock, at least here at the start.
Would I rather have had the better Democrat who would have beat Toomey? Hell, yeah. That sucks. But right now, he's freed himself to vote with us more often than before, he's sitting in seats on committees that should be occupied by Republicans and he's not getting any chairmanships any time soon. And Christ, he was a better Democrat than Ben Nelson or Evan Bayh even before he switched.
April 28, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
but HES NOT GOING TO VOTE WITH US MORE OFTEN THAN BEFORE.
just look at the statements he made today.
so i gotta ask, really what do we get out of this except a republican in what could and should have been a seat a real democrat could have easily won...
April 28, 2009 3:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you sure the statements he made today were truthful?
April 28, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point exactly. He's a politician's politician and his lips are moving.
I do expect at least a modest uptick in how often he votes with us now that he's unconstrained by any need to mollify the unplacatable Republican remnant. My recollection is that's how it worked with Jeffords, and he didn't even switch parties--he was an I caucusing with the Dems.
April 28, 2009 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Damn, people, do you all really expect him to say "I hereby repudiate everything I've claimed to stand for for the last 29 years and am now doing an about face on every issue" in his very first news post-switch conference?
Refresh my memory of his EFCA position from *last year*? Didn't he repudiate it to try to stay ahead of Tomey?
I agree with the comments that Torsella needs to pull Arlen to the Left like Tomey was pulling him to the Right.
If not, my thought would be for places like Kos and ActBlue run Monthly fundrasing efforts for Torsella. Just do a list of Arlen's anti-Progressive positions in the past month, and ask readers to chip in $10 a month. Come the primary Torsella will have enough of a war chest to be viable. Or at least force Arlen left.
John
April 28, 2009 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, rather than rending his garments and throwing ashes into the air, angrily lamenting what what a terrible development this is for the Democratic Party,Kos has this bizarre notion that this is, in fact, an unmitigated disaster of the first magnitude for the Republican Party that he's running with.
April 28, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
just cuz kos says it, doesn't make it true.
April 28, 2009 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, what, you're with Jim DeMint in believing this is actually a good thing for the Republican Party?
April 28, 2009 4:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
They now have one fewer RINO, even though they are down a seat and have an even smaller minority. Isn't that what's really important?
This being in the majority is overrated. It's much better to be an impotent, but ideologically pure, minority.
April 28, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
no but i don't think its all that great for the dems either.
specter is going to vote with the republicans on everything dems care about, only he's going to call himself a democrat while doing it.
i fail to see how that helps pass the democratic agenda.
April 28, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I always thought that the "i" in DeMint's surname worked better as an "e".
April 28, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm pretty sure Koh and Johnsen will get confirmed. Given the incredible weakness of the opposition to these well qualified candidates, the GOP could only threaten fillibuster as long as they had 40 votes and could be sure cloture wouldn't happen. The problem for the GOP is that they generally won't know if Specter will support cloture in advance so won't be able to back up threats the way they could a day ago. The GOP can't afford many more big losses, so I'd expect they pull back and focus on EFCA and other red meat issues rather than mid-level legal appointees.
April 28, 2009 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink