The power a Chairman Arlen Specter would have to staff the Senate Judiciary
Committee deserves more concern from Senate Republicans than it has
received to date. Personnel
is policy. The people a Chairman Specter would hire will be well to
the left of the average moderate Republican, let alone the average
conservative.
In 1987, I visited with a Specter staffer in support of Robert Bork’s
Supreme Court nomination. I told him that a Justice Bork would not be
predictable, unlike, say, California’s former Chief Justice, Rose Bird, who
was much in the news at the time.
Justice Bird famously HREF=”http://www.goodbyemag.com/nov99/bird.html”>overturned 61 consecutive
death penalty cases. California voters removed her in 1986.
Specter’s man stopped me. “I think Rose Bird is an excellent justice.”