When Arlen Specter switched parties, he said he would “not be an automatic 60th vote” for the Democratic agenda, but that’s pretty much what he has been:
In nearly 30 years as a Senate Republican, Arlen Specter was tough to pin down, frequently breaking ranks with his party and giving its leadership fits. Yet in the half-year since he crossed the aisle, Mr. Specter has become a remarkably reliable Democratic vote.
According to a Congressional votes database compiled by The Washington Post, Mr. Specter has voted with the Democrats 94.2 percent of the time since switching parties — an identical figure to his fellow Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey Jr. and in the middle range of his party’s caucus.
Since Rep. Joe Sestak, D-Delaware County, joined the race in late May, Mr. Specter has voted even more consistently with his party: a 96.4 percent rate, excluding a handful of votes on which he abstained. . .
When he was a Republican, Mr. Specter was a frequent objector. A tally of divisive votes by Congressional Quarterly showed that, as of mid-August, Mr. Specter had a “party unity” score of 90.5 percent with the Democrats — far higher than he ever had with the Republicans. The Washington-based publication calculated that Mr. Specter averaged a 58 percent party unity score from 1981 through 2008.
The story goes on to note that Specter has reversed his position on the “public option” and on the card-check bill.
There’s a lesson here for the rest of us. Specter has his seat today because Republicans were persuaded to support him over Pat Toomey in the 2004 primary. At the time, it seemed that it was better to keep a nominal Republican in that seat than to risk losing it to a Democrat. Oops.
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