This news period has been quite busy for a transition period! In fact, so busy that we haven’t talked about POTUS-Elect Obama’s nomination of Eric Holder to be Attorney General. I am fully supportive of Holder’s candidacy-he’s a pragmatic progressive with a strong record. So why has there been some grumblings on the Republican side of the aisle?
It’s a couple things…First, Republicans are smartly looking for a fight with the new administration. When a party is learning how to be the opposition again it goes through a period of wandering where it tries to find credible lines of attack. For Republicans, Holder’s far-away relationship to the Marc Rich pardon is something that sticks in their gut because they fiercely opposed the pardon. Also, Holder’s criticism of the Bush administration’s views about executive power and wire-tapping et al is disturbing to them because they honestly disagree.
Secondly, Sen. Arlen Specter [the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee] is up for reelection in 2010 and weak among the Republican base in Pennsylvania. He can’t appear to be too eager to support the Obama agenda, or his inevitable primary challenge will increase in intensity by the day. My gut feeling is that Specter will ultimately support the nomination, but does not want to appear as if he is a “rubber stamp for the Obama agenda.” Now, one of my rules of politics is that I never make concrete judgments about the motives of others, so I won’t presume to know why Specter is hesitating on Holder, yet there is a distinct confluence of events between his likely primary challenge and his hesitancy on Holder.
Specter becomes very important with 58 or 59 Democrats in the Senate. Specter is a moderate by instinct but may check those instincts at the door of the Senate chamber as he feels more pressure to be responsive to his GOP constituency. Specter’s vote is particularly important on the Employee Free Choice Act because Specter is known to be supportive of unions, and received the endorsement of major Philadelphia unions in the ‘04 election. So watching Specter operate on the Holder nomination serves as an important window into his behavior on other issues like EFCA, Freedom of Choice Act, judges, wiretaps, torture et al.
Stay tuned…..
-Rizzo
