Specter leftovers

Daniel Malloy Oct. 26, 2009

For Sunday's Post-Gazette, I wrote a big piece about Sen. Arlen Specter's record since he switched parties six months ago. If you're a PG+ subscriber -- and if you aren't, shame on you -- you can check out the full Q and A of my interview with the Republican-turned-Democrat. But there were a few other pieces of the story that were left on the cutting room floor, so to speak, for space reasons -- so I figured I'd share them here.

Mr. Specter told me he expected to see his seniority restored soon -- before the 2010 elections -- because party leaders had told him he would keep his status as a member of the class of 1980. But when I asked a spokeswoman for Majority Leader Harry Reid about that, she said there is no movement afoot to do it and the issue won't be revisited until the next Congress begins in 2011.

Also, Mr. Specter told me that he's working to bring Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe over to vote with the Democrats on health care -- like they did on the stimulus package. But when I caught up with Ms. Collins, she saw it differently.

“I think Olympia’s pretty much there, and I think Susan may well be,” Mr. Specter said of the Maine Republicans. “I’ve talked to them about it, and I think it could change.”
But, after describing her opposition to the public option on Thursday, Ms. Collins said that she doesn’t hear much from Mr. Specter anymore.
“I saw Arlen just the other day, and I told him I miss him because I don’t get to see him nearly as often now,” she said.“I used to see him regularly at our Tuesday lunches. Now I don’t, so I miss seeing him and working with him. But I really haven’t had many discussions with him since he left our caucus.”