Sen. Arlen Specter's going to get a subcommittee to chair after all.
The Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat thought he had retained his all-important seniority last week, when he announced the switch. Specter was first elected in 1980, which would make him the second-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee and number four on the powerful appropriations panel. And it could put him in line for an appropriations subcommittee chairmanship.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., seemed amenable.
"Senator Reid can you talk about Senator Specter's seniority now?" a reporter asked that day. "He said he would be coming in as if he were elected, in 1980, a Democrat."
"That's right," Reid said.
Tuesday, though, Senate Democrats refused to go along, and moved Specter to the bottom of the seniority ladder. Then Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., stepped in and offered to give up the helm of his crime and drugs subcommittee, one of judiciary's busiest panels.
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