With a Supreme Court Vacancy Imminent, GOP Searches For Judiciary Leader

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf reports: The timing of news that Supreme Court Justice David Souter will retire comes at a touchy time for Republicans in the Senate. Not only did they just this week lost their leader on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Arlen Specter, to party defection, but they also — assuming Al Franken is named the junior senator from Minnesota — lost their ability to filibuster an Obama nominee. If Specter is truly now a "loyal Democrat," Democrats would have to oppose an Obama nominee for that nomination to be killed. More immediately, Specter’s switch from Republican to Democrat leaves a hole for Republicans with no clear line of ascension at the important spot of ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee. The obvious choice to be the ranking Judiciary member would be Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a former chairman of the committee and its longest-serving Republican. But Hatch has exceeded term limits imposed on top committee positions by the Republican caucus. It is possible for the Republican conference to waive those rules and its likely that Orrin Hatch could ask them to, according to Republicans on Capitol Hill. But it’s unclear at this point that they would do so. If the waiver for Hatch doesn’t occur — the next most senior Judiciary Republican is Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, currently Ranking Member on the Senate Finance Committee. Would Grassley want to leave the finance committee, especially in the midst of important debates about systemic healthcare and perhaps later, entitlement reform? Grassley is more of a government watchdog and a court watcher. The smart money says he’ll stay at finance. Third in line would be Sen. Jon Kyl, although he would be unlikely to leave his position as Senate Minority Whip — the number two Republican in the whole caucus — to take over at Judiciary. That leads us to Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, a staunch conservative and former U.S. Attorney under President Reagan. It would be an odd twist of fate for Sessions to be the lead Republican on judicial appointments; his own nomination to the federal bench by Reagan was scuttled by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sessions was in disfavor with Democrats on the Committee in large part because of his aggressive prosecution of civil rights workers, who became known as the "Marion Three," for election fraud over 14 absentee ballots in the 1984 general election. Back to Specter and a final point about the oddity of his part switch. The issue of nominees had a lot to do with Specter’s defection, in ways that make sense and ways that don’t. What makes sense about his defection is that Specter was almost schizophrenic about his votes for judicial nominees. He angered many on the right when he opposed conservative legal icon Robert Bork’s nomination. But he made up for it a little bit when he played the role of chief attack dog against Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings. And that’s where his defection stops making sense. Specter was a loud voice in complaining about Democratic obstruction of President Bush’s judicial nominees. He’ll now presumably be the 60th vote on procedural motions to get President Obama’s nominees confirmed over any Republican filibusters. At the press conference Wednesday announcing he was now a Democrat, Specter derided conservative Republicans for pushing out moderate Republicans in the Senate and compromising Bush judicial appointees. "Remember Linc Chafee?" Specter said to journalists of Rhode Island Sen. Lincoln Chafee, who withstood a tough Republican primary challenge in 2006. "They made him spend all his money in the primary, and he lost the general. And had Linc Chafee been elected in 2006, the Republicans would have controlled the Senate in 2007 and 2008. And I would have been chairman of the committee," lamented Specter, who continued, "And President Bush nominated 13 circuit judges. They were all left on the table for President Obama. And President Bush nominated 21 district court judges, and they were all left on the table for President Obama." You have to assume that Specter has no ideological tie to those Republican judicial nominees for it to make sense that he’ll now be the 60th vote for all those judges left on the table for Obama. Either that or he just really likes being a senator and judicial nominees are secondary. Update: In an interview with ABC, Sen. Orrin Hatch indicated he wouldn’t seek the top Republican slot on the Senate Judiciary Committee. So that would indicate that it’s down to Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa, who is currently the top Republican on the Finance Committee, and Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama for the top Republican slot on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Look for part of his interview on World News with Charles Gibson tonight.