Elected 1980, seat up 2004 Born: Feb. 12, 1930, Wichita, KS Home: Philadelphia Education: U. of PA, B.A. 1951, Yale U., LL.B. 1956 Religion: Jewish Marital Status: married (Joan)

Career:

• Political: Philadelphia Dist. Atty., 1965-73.
• Professional: Practicing atty., 1955-56, 1974-80; Asst. Cnsl., Warren Comm., 1964; PA Asst. Atty. Gen., 1964-65.
• Military: Air Force, 1951-53.

DC Office: 711 HSOB 20510, 202-224-4254; Fax: 202-228-1229; Web site: www.senate.gov/~specter

State Offices: Allentown, 610-434-1444; Erie,814-453-3010; Harrisburg,717-782-3951; Philadelphia,215-597-7200; Pittsburgh,412-644-3400; Scranton,570-346-2006.

Committees:

• Appropriations: Agriculture & Rural Development; Defense; Foreign Operations; Labor, HHS & Education (RMM); Transportation.
• Environment & Public Works: Superfund, Toxics, Risk & Waste Management.
• Judiciary: Administrative Oversight & the Courts; Antitrust, Business Rights & Competition; Immigration.
• Veterans' Affairs (RMM).

Arlen Specter, one of the nation's most durable career politicians, has held public office and has been an important national figure off and on for most of four decades. Specter grew up in Russell, Kansas, also the home town of Bob Dole; his father was an immigrant who worked as a tailor, owned a junk yard and sent four children through college. Specter came to Philadelphia at 17 to attend the University of Pennsylvania. After college he served in the Air Force, went to Yale Law School and practiced law in Philadelphia. In 1964 he was a top staffer for the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination, where he helped develop the single-bullet theory. After the Warren Commission, he returned to his law practice, switched to the Republican Party, and was elected district attorney in Democratic Philadelphia in 1965 and again in 1969. He lost the race for D.A. in 1973, and was beaten in Republican primaries for senator in 1976 and governor in 1978, before narrowly (36%-33%) edging a former state Republican chairman in the 1980 primary and beating a low-spending Democrat 50%-48% in the general for his Senate seat. In 1986, he won re-election by a 56%-43% margin against a low-profile House Democrat; in 1992 he was re-elected 49%-46% after he became a target of feminists for his questioning of Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas. He ran for president in 1995, but withdrew before the first caucus or primary.

Throughout this career of narrow victories and numerous defeats, Specter's assets have been brains and hard work. He is respected by colleagues and constituents, though not always well-liked. He sides with conservatives on some divisive issues, with liberals on others, building up no permanent credit with either. He is aggressive and prosecutorial, well-prepared and persuasive once he takes a stand. These traits are both his strengths and weaknesses; they explain why he was vulnerable in 1992, and why he won; why he ran for president, and why his campaign went nowhere. His voting record is almost precisely at the midpoint of the Senate, and he has played key roles on a variety of issues. Though he switched and voted to override Bill Clinton's ''partial-birth'' abortion veto, he is generally pro-choice on abortion--an issue he featured in his presidential campaign, infuriating many Republican activists. He pushes tough penalties for crime and supports capital punishment. On a closely divided and rancorous Judiciary Committee, he played a key role on several Supreme Court nominations. More than anyone else, he defeated Robert Bork in 1987 and, more than anyone but John Danforth, he confirmed Clarence Thomas in 1991. In 1994 his devastatingly complex chart describing the Clinton health care plan played no small part in defeating it. As chairman of the Intelligence Committee in 1995-96, he failed to reorganize intelligence agencies and to make theft of ''proprietary economic information'' a crime, but his sharp questioning of CIA director nominee Anthony Lake led Lake to withdraw in March 1997. As chairman of the Veterans' Affairs Committee in 1997, he called for doing more to investigate whether there is a Gulf war syndrome and what was known about chemical hazards in the region.

On impeachment, Specter took his own course. ''I propose abandoning impeachment and, after the president leaves office, holding him accountable in the same way any other person would be: through indictment and prosecution for any federal crimes established by the evidence," he said in November 1998. In February 1999, in a decision he called ''a lot ambiguous, maybe even a little amorphous,'' Specter said he would vote ''not proven,'' citing Scottish criminal law. ''I think it is important to make a distinction that I do not believe that the president is not guilty,'' he said. ''It's a trial on which you can't really come to a verdict because of the absence of witnesses and the absence of relevant evidence.''

On many issues Specter has been one of the few Republicans voting with Senate Democrats--on the Republican tax cut in August 1999, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in October 1999, the minimum wage in November 1999, on the federal tobacco lawsuit in July 2000, and HMO regulation in July 2000. With Congressman Frank Wolf, he introduced in May 1997 a religious persecution bill to retaliate against countries that engage in that practice; in 1998 he revised it to try to meet the objections of the Clinton administration. In March 1998, Specter, ever the prosecutor, said that Saddam Hussein should be tried as a war criminal. In August 1998 he questioned whether Bill Clinton's order of cruise missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan had a ''diversionary motive''; after Republican leaders declined to follow his lead, he backtracked. In July 1998 he urged the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate Clinton-Gore campaign fundraising and threatened to take Janet Reno to court if she didn't. Specter's May 1999 amendment to the defense authorization bill, invoking the War Powers Act to prevent the deployment of ground troops in the former Yugoslavia, failed 52-48. In early 1999 he supported tariffs and revisions in dumping laws to protect Pennsylvania steelmakers against Russian and East Asian imports.

Specter is quick to recognize a popular issue and to propose legislation on it. In 1999 he proposed to require sports teams to set aside 10% of their television revenues to pay for new stadiums; Pennsylvania is publicly financing two new stadiums in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. With Edward Kennedy, he sponsored hate crimes legislation that passed the Senate in July 1999. When the Clinton administration issued a report on medical errors, he held two quick hearings in two months--one on a day when the government was closed by a blizzard--and was the first senator with legislation on the subject. He sponsored a bill to change the law on air crashes so that relatives of the victims of the 1996 TWA 800 crash could recover noneconomic damages. During the hearings on Firestone tires in September 2000, he proposed to criminalize any product "dangerous to human life and limb beyond the reasonable and accepted risk with such or similar products lacking such a flaw." He has sponsored a bill to exempt the Amish from child labor laws. Two months before the Supreme Court hearings on the Florida case, he and Joseph Biden sponsored a bill to require that Supreme Court proceedings be televised. Specter is not afraid to antagonize his colleagues. In 1999 he persuaded Majority Leader Trent Lott to name him chairman of a task force to investigate the Clinton Justice Department, a move clearly resented by Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch. In 2000 Specter proceeded to conduct hearings on transmission of secrets to China and the handling of the Wen Ho Lee case, the fundraising activities of Al Gore and others in the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, the Waco confrontation of 1993; he sought to look into Justice's handling of the Elian Gonzalez case; he was blocked by Hatch from subpoenaing FBI Director Louis Freeh.

On the Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee of Appropriations, Specter has been a leader of the bipartisan move to double the funding of the National Institutes of Health over five years. He is not shy about using his place on the committee to funnel money into Pennsylvania, from the Philadelphia Navy Yard to Lake Erie. He has supported changes in federal organ transplant policy in 1998 (Pittsburgh has a big organ transplant hospital) and called in 1999 for research on stem cells from human embryos. In 2000 he got $3 million for the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre Airport, $1 million for the Wilkes-Barre Intermodal Center, $5 million to Mag-Lev Inc and $2 million to Pittsburgh Airborne Shuttle System for research on magnetic-levitation trains, $5 million for Pittsburgh's North Shore Connector and $10 million for SEPTA's 62-mile Schuylkill Valley corridor from Philadelphia to Wyomissing in Berks County.

Toward the Bush administration, he took a characteristically ambiguous stance. His early announcement of support for John Ashcroft's nomination as attorney general helped ensure that he would have solid Republican support. But he undercut the Bush tax cut by supporting tax triggers and by voting to reduce the tax cut to $1.25 trillion. In February 2001 he held hearings on Clinton's last-minute pardons of Marc Rich and others, and on one television news show said tantalyzingly, "I'm not suggesting it should be done, but President Clinton technically could still be impeached." But he declined to call on Clinton to testify. After Jim Jeffords defected from the Republican Party, Specter was given a leadership role to be a voice for moderates in the party.

After his tough re-election race in 1992, Specter had an easier time of it in 1998. He overcame serious health problems--he had brain tumor surgery in June 1993, underwent a radiation procedure in October 1996 and had double heart-bypass surgery in June 1998, returning to the Senate in early July--and continued to work hard getting around the state and raising money. Pennsylvania Democrats have shown little adeptness at winning Senate elections: They have won only one, the 1991 special after the death of John Heinz, since 1962. In 1997, well-known Democrats one after the other declined to run against a candidate who had won only 49% five years before. Specter's 1998 opponent was former state Representative William Lloyd, who ran third in the 1996 Democratic primary for auditor. He spent only $187,000 and put up no TV spots. Specter spent $4.5 million and ran spots showing him being praised by Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, the state's most prominent Democrat. The Pennsylvania AFL-CIO endorsed Specter in July, the United Steelworkers in October. So confident was Specter that he had more than $2.6 million in cash left over. Specter won 61%-35%, carrying every county but Philadelphia and Somerset. He became the first Pennsylvania senator to be popularly elected to four terms, and if he finishes out the term he will be only nine months behind the record tenure for a Pennsylvania senator, held by Boies Penrose (1897-1921). In January 2001 a rumor circulated that Specter was going to switch parties, again. "It's ridiculous! Nothing to it." But 1st district Congressman and Philadelphia Democratic Chairman Bob Brady said, "I wish it was true."

Group Ratings
	ADA	ACLU	AFS	LCV	CON	ITIC	NTU	COC	ACU	NTLC	CHC
2000	40	43	57	29	52	58	53	53	62	60	31
1999	40	--	50	44	41	--	38	47	48	--	--

National Journal Ratings
	1999 LIB	--	1999 CONS		2000 LIB	--	2000 CONS
Economic	54%	--	45%		54%	--	45%
Social	53%	--	46%		49%	--	46%
Foreign	48%	--	49%		16%	--	83%

Key Votes of the 106th Congress
1. Educ. Savings Accts. Y 2. Prescrip. Drug Benefit Y 3. Delay Ergonomic Standards N 4. Phase Out Estate Tax N 5. Review Movie Violence Y 6. Gun Show Bckgrnd. Checks N		7. Ban Part.-Birth Abortion Y  8. Broaden Hate Crimes List Y  9. NATO War in Serbia Y 10. Table Cuba Travel Ban N 11. Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Y 12. Perm. Trade with China N

Election Results
1998 general	Arlen Specter (R)	1,814,180	(61%)
	Bill Lloyd (D)	1,028,839	(35%)
	Other	114,753	(4%)
1998 primary	Arlen Specter (R)	376,322	(67%)
	Larry Murphy (R)	101,120	(18%)
	Tom Lingenfelter (R)	82,168	(15%)
1992 general	Arlen Specter (R)	2,358,125	(49%)
	Lynn Yeakel (D)	2,224,966	(46%)
	John F. Perry (Lib)	219,319	(5%)

Campaign Finance
1998	Receipts	Receipts from PACs	Expenditures
Arlen Specter (R)	$6,264,387	$1,399,922	$4,535,887
Bill Lloyd (D)	$188,384	$20,594	$187,157