in 1971 in 1986 In 1988, he co-sponsored an amendment to the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in the rental, sale, marketing, and financing of the nation's housing. The amendment strengthened the ability of the
Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity to enforce the Fair Housing Act and expanded the protected classes to include disabled persons and families with children. In 1998 and 1999, Specter criticized the Republican Party for the
impeachment of President
Bill Clinton. Believing that Clinton had not received a fair trial, Specter cited
Scots law to render a verdict of "
not proven" on Clinton's impeachment. However, his verdict was recorded as "not guilty" in the Senate records. In October 1999, Specter was one of four Senate Republicans to vote in favor of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty was designed to ban underground nuclear testing and was the first major international security pact to be defeated in the Senate since the
Treaty of Versailles. On October 11, 2002, Specter voted in favor of
H.J.Res.114 authorizing the
Iraq War. In a 2002
PoliticsPA Feature story designating politicians with
yearbook superlatives, he was named the "Toughest to Work For". In 2003, the
Pennsylvania Report, a subscription-based political newsletter, described Specter as one of the "vanishing breed of Republican moderates", and described his political stance as "'Pennsylvania first' middle of-the-road politics", even though he was known as an "avid Republican partisan". Soon after the
2004 election, Specter stepped into the public spotlight as a result of controversial statements about his views of the future of the
Supreme Court. At a press conference, he stated: Activist groups interpreted his comments as warnings to
President George W. Bush about the implications of nominating Supreme Court justices who were opposed to the
Roe v. Wade decision. Specter maintained that his comments were a prediction, not a warning. He met with many conservative Republican senators, and based on assurances he gave them, he was recommended for the Judiciary Committee's chairmanship in late 2004. He officially assumed that position when the 109th Congress convened on January 4, 2005. On March 9, 2006, a revision of the
USA PATRIOT Act was signed into law. It amended the process for interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys, a clause Specter wrote during his chairmanship of the
Senate Judiciary Committee. The change allowed the
Bush Administration to appoint interim U.S. attorneys without
term limits, and without confirmation by the Senate. The Bush administration used the law to place at least eight interim attorneys into office in 2006. Specter claimed that the changes were added by staff member
Brett Tolman. For more information, see
dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy. for an episode of
Justice Talking on "Presidential signing statements". Specter was very critical of Bush's
wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants. When the story first broke, he called the effort "inappropriate" and "clearly and categorically wrong". He said that he intended to hold hearings into the matter early in 2006, and had
Alberto Gonzales appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer for the program. (However, Specter declined to force Gonzales to testify under oath.) On January 15, 2006, Specter mentioned
impeachment and criminal prosecution as potential remedies if Bush proved to have broken the law, though he downplayed the likelihood of such an outcome. On April 9, 2006, speaking on
Fox News about the Bush administration's leaking of classified intelligence, Specter stated: "The President of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people." However, he did vote for the
2008 amendments to the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which placed federal
electronic searches almost entirely within the
executive branch. During the
2007–2008 National Football League season, Specter wrote to
NFL commissioner
Roger Goodell concerning the destruction of
New England Patriots "Spygate" tapes. Specter, a devout and longtime
Philadelphia Eagles fan, wondered if there was a link between the tapes and their
Super Bowl victory over the Eagles in
2005. On February 1, 2008, Goodell stated that the tapes were destroyed because "they confirmed what I already knew about the issue". Specter released a follow-up statement: Starting in 2007, Specter sponsored legislation to fix a long-standing inequity in American law that shut out a majority of
U.S. Armed Forces service members convicted in courts-martial from appealing their convictions to the
U.S. Supreme Court. In 2007, Specter co-sponsored the Equal Justice for United States Military Personnel Act of 2007 with Senators
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.),
Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and
Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). In December 2008, Specter was involved in a controversy as a result of telling "Polish jokes" at New York's Rainbow Room while speaking at the annual meeting of the Commonwealth Club. Specter voted in favor of the Senate's version of the
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 on February 10, 2009; he was one of only three Republicans to break ranks with the party and support the bill, which was favored by President
Barack Obama and was unanimously supported by the Democratic senators. As a result of his support, many in the Republican mainstream began calling for his removal from office. Specter was instrumental in ensuring that the act allocated an additional $10 billion to the
National Institutes of Health over the next two years. In August 2009, more than ten years before the global
COVID-19 pandemic, he joined Pennsylvania congressman
Jason Altmire in leading a congressional hearing investigating whether the federal government should fund a national vaccine production center. In late April 2009, facing the prospect of a tough Republican primary in 2010, Specter decided to switch to the Democratic Party, putting the Democrats on the "precipice" of a 60-seat majority that would allow them to pass legislation without Republican votes. Nevertheless, his new Democratic colleagues refused to let him retain his nearly 30 years of seniority on Senate committees, which would have "bumped" a number of Democrats out of coveted committee and sub-committee chairmanships. This effectively reduced him to the status of a freshman and greatly curtailed his influence in the chamber. In October 2009, Specter called for the repeal of the
Defense of Marriage Act, which he had supported in 1996. In November 2009, Specter introduced a bill to require
televising U.S. Supreme Court proceedings, and explained that "[t]he Supreme Court makes pronouncements on constitutional and federal law that have direct impacts on the rights of Americans. Those rights would be substantially enhanced by televising the oral arguments of the Court so that the public can see and hear the issues presented." Specter's career in the United States Senate ended on January 3, 2011, after his primary defeat to
Joe Sestak. He was succeeded by Republican U.S. Representative
Pat Toomey, who won the general election against Sestak.
Committee assignments Specter was chairman of the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence from 1995, when the Republicans gained control of the Senate, until 1997, when he became chairman of the Committee on Veterans Affairs. He chaired that committee until 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005, during the times the Republicans controlled the Senate. He also chaired the Judiciary Committee from 2005 to 2007. ==Campaigns==