Lawmaker rips Specter over nominee

Specter said he believes a judge's statements do not reflect a fixed opinion.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Democrat seeking to oust Sen. Arlen Specter blasted the Republican lawmaker Tuesday for approving a judicial nominee who has said that rape victims rarely get pregnant and that a wife should subordinate herself to her husband.
A spokesman for Specter, in line to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee if he wins re-election this fall, said Specter "agonized" before voting to confirm Arkansas attorney J. Leon Holmes for a U.S. District Court judgeship in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Holmes was confirmed by a 51-46 vote shortly after 6 p.m.
Democrats had long complained about Holmes, who apologized for writing in 1980 that rape victims rarely get pregnant. Holmes had called pregnancy a "red herring" in the debate over abortion.
But Holmes said his 1997 comparison of the Catholic Church's subservient relationship with Jesus Christ to a wife's duties to her husband was unfairly taken out of context. In an article he co-authored with his wife, he said a wife has an obligation "to subordinate herself to her husband" and "to place herself under the authority of the man."
Six Democrats joined most Republicans in supporting Holmes, the former president of Arkansas Right to Life. Five Republicans opposed him.
'Concerned'
Specter, who delayed a committee vote on the nomination last year after the attorney's controversial statements surfaced, did not give his approval to Holmes until the confirmation was assured.
He said he is "concerned" about Holmes' 1980 and 1997 statements, but "I do not believe that they reflect a fixed state of mind demonstrating a predisposition on judicial issues to come before his court."
"They were written some time ago," Specter said in a statement after the vote.
He also noted that Holmes' decisions from the bench would be subject to review by an appeals court, and that Arkansas' two senators, Democrats both, also voted to confirm.
But Senate challenger Rep. Joe Hoeffel, D-Pa., called Specter's vote "a step in the wrong direction." He questioned whether the senator was fulfilling a promise to conservatives who supported him in his narrow Republican primary victory in April.
Specter "has said he is proud of his support for every one of President Bush's divisive judicial nominees, but he shouldn't be proud of his support for Mr. Holmes," Hoeffel said after the 6 p.m. vote Tuesday. "If votes like this are the price of [President] George Bush and [Sen.] Rick Santorum's critical support for Specter in his recent primary race, then mainstream Pennsylvanians were the real losers."
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