Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a moderate, gay-rights supporting Republican poised to take over chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush today against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation," reports the AP.
Specter helped kill President Reagan's nomination of arch-homophobe 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.
The Human Rights Campaign vigorously opposed Specter's
re-election, despite his co-sponsorship of the HRC's Employee
Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Hate Crimes Prevention Act, among
other measures. If HRC had been successful and Specter had been
defeated, the Judiciary Committee could have been headed by a
right-wing social conservative such as Alabama's
Sessions.
[Updte: A new letter in our mailbag takes me to task over Sen. Specter's liklihood to stand up to anti-gay judicial nominees.]