Breaking: Specter Confirms He’ll Vote Against Employee Free Choice
This is big: Senator Arlen Specter has just confirmed that he’ll vote against cloture for the Employee Free Choice Act, dealing a serious blow to labor’s efforts to get the key 60 votes for the measure in the Senate.
Specter made the declaration on the floor of the Senate moments ago, his spokesperson confirms.
As Sam Stein notes, this is a “major blow” to EFCA supporters because Specter was the one Senate GOPer who backed cloture for the bill — letting the bill come to the floor for a vote — in 2007. Specter’s declaration that he’ll vote No this time is a big setback for the measure.
Labor unions mounted a big campaign to keep Specter in the pro-EFCA camp. Officials with the AFL-CIO and SEIU promised Specter that they’d back him to the hilt for re-election in 2010 if he backed the measure. But it isn’t to be.
Specter’s exact quotes coming soon.
Update: HuffPo has Specter’s explanation. He says that the recession “make this a particularly bad time to enact Employee’s choice legislation” and claims it would “result in further job losses.”
This is key because it suggests the possibility that centrist Dems might follow suit and use the economy as cover to oppose the measure.
Specter also makes it clear that he’s eager to shut down speculation about any deal with labor.
Update: My take on how this changes the landscape here.
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It will be interesting to see if he says he will vote for cloture or support a filibuster. If he still will vote to invoke cloture all is not lost. He might be trying to thread a needle here so he can stay a Republican. Dumb move if you ask me.
Guess someone is looking to retire!
He’s said he will support a filibuster/won’t vote for cloture.
Trevor, that was my first thought as well.
This kind of makes sense. Specter didn’t want to switch parties. At this stage in his career, I can understand that. If he signaled that he was going to vote for cloture on this, it’s almost certain Toomey and/or another Club for Growth crazy would have primaried him and beat him. That would have left him with only one option – run as an independent. But if he did that, even with union backing, there’s no chance the Dems would sit this one out. So you’d have a three-way race, one that the Dem candidate would probably win. Specter is still kind of popular overall in PA (not with the crazy, but they’re a small minority) so he stands at least a 50-50 chance or better of winning re-election if he gets the GOP nomination, which he will if a crazy C of G candidate isn’t running against him in the primary.
Honestly I think the unions coming out saying they would back him on the vote may have hurt their own cause. I thought it was a good idea at first but that would have been about the most blatant case of pay to play in recent history. Sometimes subtlety is a lot better than a brute force attack. Now if I were the union the tactic I would use would be to try to bring his numbers down as far as possible in Pennsylvania especially in areas where there is a big union presence then release the polling data before the vote. If his numbers go in the tank and it seems that its because of his EFCA decision he might just rethink it.
In the immortal words of crotchety junkyard philosopher Fred G. Sanford, “He who liveth by the sword shall be stucketh.” En garde, Senator Specter — the end of your senate career is nigh.
“Now if I were the union the tactic I would use would be to try to bring his numbers down as far as possible in Pennsylvania especially in areas where there is a big union presence then release the polling data before the vote. If his numbers go in the tank and it seems that its because of his EFCA decision he might just rethink it.”
A great strategy. And maybe this was always plan B. By saying they would back him if he voted for cloture, the unions forced his hand. Now they have him on record as saying he will vote against cloture. They can hammer away at him with this in the union areas sgwhite mentioned.
He was a Dem and should go back to the Dems. He’s making a big mistake.
This kind of makes sense. Specter didn’t want to switch parties. At this stage in his career, I can understand that.
I guess, but it’s kind of weird to talk about his “career” given that by doing this it’s very probable his career is now over.
For non-Pennsylvanians:
The unions endorsed Specter in 2004 against Joe Hoeffel, the Democrat.
Specter shouldn’t have that hard a time in the primary. Pat Toomey nearly won the primary in 2004, but this time the social conservative Peg Luksik, the anti-choice darling who’s done well in statewide runs before, will also be in the Republican primary.
Chuck Schumer will try to derail a Democratic primary in favor of someone he chooses to the right of Specter.