Published: April 28, 2009
WASHINGTON — In an unexpected turnabout in political loyalties, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced on Tuesday that he was leaving the Republican Party to become a Democrat, bolstering President Obama at a pivotal moment for his policy agenda and further marginalizing Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Senator Arlen Specter was surrounded by reporters on Tuesday after it was announced that he will switch parties. Mr. Specter acknowledged that the surprise decision was driven by his intense desire to win a sixth term next year. It came after he and his political advisers concluded over the weekend that he could not win a Republican primary against a conservative challenger, particularly in light of his vote for the president’s economic stimulus package.
“I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate — not prepared to have that record decided by that jury,” said Mr. Specter, 79, a moderate who has long been known for breaking with his party.
Republicans were knocked off stride by the announcement, and many had no warning from Mr. Specter, who met a polite but chilly reception when he entered a party luncheon to inform his colleagues. They immediately labeled it, in the words of Senator John Cornyn of Texas, who heads the party’s campaign arm, a naked act of “political self-preservation,” and they sought to portray it as an isolated case growing out of Pennsylvania’s political environment.
The defection of Mr. Specter creates the potential for Democrats to control 60 votes in the Senate if Al Franken prevails this summer in the court fight over last November’s Minnesota Senate election, a prospect that appears increasingly likely.
If Democrats could hold those votes together, Republicans would be unable to mount filibusters as Congress moves into the critical phase of acting on Mr. Obama’s ambitious agenda on health care and energy. A last line of defense against a Democratic-controlled Congress and White House would thereby be eliminated.
“This is transformative,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon. “It’s game-changing.”
Democrats warned that it would remain a formidable challenge to keep their ranks together. Mr. Specter said he would not be an automatic Democratic vote, though he will be pulled in that direction since he now faces the prospect of running in a Democratic primary.
Mr. Specter was one of just three Republican senators to vote in favor of the stimulus package this year. He is a supporter of abortion rights and expanded embryonic stem cell research, and he opposed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. But he also voted to authorize the war in Iraq, backed President George W. Bush’s Supreme Court nominees, favors school vouchers and has taken many other positions that put him at odds with most Democrats.
Mr. Specter said he had received commitments from Mr. Obama and Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, to support him in any primary, backing intended to deter Democratic challengers. Mr. Obama is scheduled to endorse Mr. Specter on Wednesday morning at a joint appearance.
Administration officials said Mr. Obama was handed a note from an aide at 10:25 a.m. Tuesday in his daily economic briefing. The note, said a senior administration official, read, “Specter is announcing he is changing parties.” Seven minutes later, Mr. Obama reached Mr. Specter by telephone.
In a brief conversation, the president said, “You have my full support,” said the official, who heard the phone call. The president added that Democrats were “thrilled to have you.”
White House officials said Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had been at the center of the effort to persuade Mr. Specter to change parties. They said a switch had been the subject of years of bantering and discussion between the two men, who often sat together while riding the Amtrak train home. But the conversation turned more earnest after Mr. Biden lobbied Mr. Specter to vote with the White House on the stimulus bill this year.
One adviser to Mr. Biden said that since that day 10 weeks ago, Mr. Biden and Mr. Specter had spoken 14 times — six times in person and eight in telephone conversations. In each case, White House officials said, Mr. Biden argued that the Republican Party had increasingly drifted away from Mr. Specter since the election and that ideologically, he was closer to the Democratic Party.
White House officials said that there was no realistic way to guarantee that Mr. Specter would not face a primary race for the Democratic nomination, but noted that there was no Democrat in a position to resist the state’s political machine and make a serious challenge. More than that, White House officials said they had assured Mr. Specter that Mr. Obama would campaign for him and raise money for him if necessary.
“The president’s appreciative of this decision and particularly appreciative of the support that he gave on a number of things, the stimulus package being one of them,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “And the president will do whatever he can do to help.”
Some Republicans bade good riddance to Mr. Specter, who was badly trailing in polls against former Representative Patrick J. Toomey, who also once led the Club for Growth, a group of fiscal conservatives who have financed primary challenges against Republicans they consider to have strayed too far from conservative principles.
Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, did not mince words, saying Mr. Specter “left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record.”
But Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, a Republican who also supported the administration’s economic stimulus plan, said Mr. Specter’s view that the party had shifted too far to the right reflected the increasingly inhospitable climate for moderates in the Republican Party.
Ms. Snowe said national Republican leaders were not grasping that “political diversity makes a party stronger, and ultimately we are heading to having the smallest political tent in history.”
Other Republicans said Democrats were on the verge of unchecked power in Washington, a theme Republicans have pushed in an effort to turn political weakness into a strength.
“The danger of that for the country,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, “is that there won’t automatically be an ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule.”
Mr. Specter, who sat on the Democratic side of the dais during a committee hearing Tuesday afternoon, said he had been assured that his seniority would be recognized by his new party, which would put him in line to jump over some Democrats for subcommittee chairmanships after the 2010 midterm elections.
Mr. Specter has suffered from a variety of serious illnesses over the years, but said on Tuesday that he was “full of vim, vigor and vitality.”
He has angered many Democrats over the years with his positions, particularly his support of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. But he said that with his record of 10,000 votes cast over almost 30 years, he had done something to anger virtually everyone.
“I don’t expect everybody to agree with all my votes,” he said. “I don’t agree with them all myself at this point.”
Reporting was contributed by David M. Herszenhorn, Robert Pear and Jeff Zeleny from Washington, and Katharine Q. Seelye from New York.
