Arlen Specter Senate Quotations

There are conspiracies all over the Senate floor on any day!

If the Senate were to reject the treaty, then it would be highly publicized worldwide. It would be an open excuse for countries like India and Pakistan to continue nuclear testing which I think is very undesirable, destabilizing that area of the world,

There is a great mystique of the Senate Caucus Room, ... We are going to open up the hearings there.

My No. 1 priority is to get Rick Santorum re-elected in 2006. I would vote for him to any Senate leadership job, I would help him become president.

What assurances can you give the Senate and the American people that you will be independent, if confirmed, and not give President Bush any special deference on any matter involving him which might come before the court?

As the record shows, I have supported every one of President Bush's nominees in the Judiciary Committee and on the Senate floor. I have never and would never apply any litmus test on the abortion issue and, as the record shows, I have voted to confirm Chief Justice (William) Rehnquist, Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor, and Justice (Anthony) Kennedy and led the fight to confirm Justice (Clarence) Thomas.

The Senate has not asked for anything falling under executive privilege,

The Senate and the Judiciary Committee can accomplish more in three cooperative hours than in three days or three weeks of disharmonious activity.

And that's why I believe -- and I have seen with my experience in the Senate the value of public hearings -- when FBI Director Mueller has to answer these questions, when CIA Director Tenet has to answer why the president wasn't warned in the August 6 briefing about the tall buildings being in jeopardy, the White House and the CIA headquarters.

I hope we do not come back to the terrible schism we had, ... That just about tore the Senate apart, and it has the potential to do it again, except that the stakes would be bigger. You are talking about the Supreme Court.

I do hope that when we in the Congress, both in this body -- when responsibilities come to the Senate -- and the other body, in the House of Representatives, there will be an approach which is bipartisan and nonpartisan in nature,

This hearing comes at a time of turbulent partisanship in the United States Senate - turbulent partisanship.