Arlen Specter scolds senators’ partisanship in his final speech

Arlen Specter, a former Philadelphia prosecutor whose principal passion has always been law, used his final speech on the Senate floor to deliver what he described as his “closing argument” decrying a loss of civility among his colleagues.

He stood Tuesday in the same spot where he had given countless speeches over a 30-year career — defending federal funds for the National Institutes of Health or explaining constitutional nuances — to reiterate his passions, but also to deliver a stinging evaluation of his colleagues and their partisanship.

Specter, who left the Republican Party in spring 2009 to avoid a divisive intraparty battle for reelection only to be beaten in the Democratic primary by a lesser-known congressman, criticized senators who actively campaigned against their colleagues this year, notably conservative Republicans who supported “tea party” candidates over incumbent moderates.

“That conduct was beyond contemplation in the Senate I joined 30 years ago. Collegiality can obviously not be maintained when negotiating with someone simultaneously out to defeat you, especially within your own party,” Specter said, adding that “eating or defeating your own is a form of sophisticated cannibalism.”

A centrist ideologically, Specter prided himself as a coalition builder. He said during the primary that he had sometimes wondered if staying a Republican would have allowed him to persuade others in his party to vote for the healthcare reform bill, which did not garner any GOP support in the Senate.

“Repeatedly, senior Republican senators have recently abandoned long-held positions out of fear of losing their seats over a single vote or because of party discipline,” Specter said.

His vote for the 2008 economic stimulus bill alienated him from his Republican colleagues, so he left to join the Democrats. But many Pennsylvania Democrats, who had known Specter for so long as a Republican, did not believe his party-switching motives were anything but a ploy to keep his job in the Senate.

At 80, Specter was not ready to retire, believing there was much more he could achieve in the public sphere. When asked during an interview last spring about the life he’s had, he corrected the reporter: “The life I’m having.”

He never achieved a career goal to allow cameras inside Supreme Court proceedings. He wanted to keep fighting for increased cancer research funding; he is the survivor of a brain tumor and two bouts of Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

He took part in 14 nomination hearings of Supreme Court justices. He brought significant federal dollars to Pennsylvania for programs and projects.

Though Specter was critical of the institution he leaves behind, he did not spend any time on self-reflection. That will be for another time, probably in a book he plans to write about his final years in the Senate.

Nor was he sentimental. The closest he came to that was at the end of his speech.

“A closing speech has an inevitable aspect of nostalgia,” he said. “An extraordinary experience has come to an end.”

colby.itkowitz@mcall.com