Specter gets Hatch's OK as chairman of Judiciary

WASHINGTON — Sen. Arlen Specter gained ground Tuesday toward winning the Senate Judiciary Committee chairmanship, which was thrown into doubt after he said judges who oppose abortion rights would face confirmation problems.

"I expect him to have the support of the committee," the panel's current chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said after a closed-door meeting of its 10 Republican members.

Specter, a moderate GOP senator from Pennsylvania who just won election to his fifth term, sought the meeting after social conservatives opposed to abortion mounted a campaign to deny him the job of guiding possible Supreme Court nominees — as well as lower court nominees — to confirmation.

"Nobody in the meeting was against Arlen," Hatch told reporters, with Specter at his side. "Senator Specter handled himself very well, and frankly, I'm for him, as I should be."

Despite picking up the crucial support Tuesday, Specter stopped short of declaring victory.

"No chickens have hatched, and I don't count any chickens until they're hatched," he said. "But with (Sen.) Hatch beside me, I'm a little less unconfident."

Hatch, who cannot keep the post because of Republican term limits on chairmanships, said he expects the matter to be fully resolved before the 109th Congress convenes in January. It moved in that direction Tuesday when even conservatives on the judiciary panel characterized their meeting with Specter as productive.

Outside the Capitol, about 20 abortion opponents held a "pray-in" protesting the prospect of Specter's becoming the panel's chairman.

Specter, 74, stunned conservatives at a Nov. 3 postelection news conference when he said judicial nominees who would seek to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case legalizing abortion, probably would be blocked by Democrats.

"The president is well aware of what happened, when a number of his nominees were sent up, with the filibuster," Specter said then. "And I would expect the president to be mindful of the considerations which I am mentioning."

Specter spent virtually all of Tuesday, the first day of Congress' return after the election two weeks earlier, offering private reassurances to conservatives in hopes of quelling the controversy. Before the Judiciary Committee meeting, he spent 90 minutes with eight Senate party leaders in Majority Leader Bill Frist's office.