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WASHINGTON - Conservative opponents of Sen. Arlen Specter's bid to become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman are flooding Republican committee members with calls demanding he be passed over.
But Specter has also been making calls in an effort to cement his chairmanship, one official told The Associated Press. Without any change in the support of the leaders who backed his re-election last week, Specter is likely to take over as chairman of the committee that will consider President Bush's judicial nominees. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch is due to relinquish the post due to term limits on chairmanships.
Specter embarked on a media blitz Monday to help repair the damage from his comment last week that anti-abortion judges would be unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate. He told CNN, ''I think I can help the president and I think I can help the country.''
Republican Conference chairman Rick Santorum, a fellow Pennsylvanian and one of the Senate's leading conservatives, put out a general statement of support for Specter last Thursday. ''I look forward to working with Senator Specter to guarantee that every judicial nominee put forth by President Bush has an up or down vote,'' he said.
Conservatives are inundating those senators with calls and e-mails trying to sway those votes.
One GOP senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee said his office had received more than 1,000 phone calls Friday opposing Specter. The senator said that was the most phone calls on one subject since the gay marriage debate in July.