Specter defends Speaker

Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) is fully embracing his new party this week, working behind the scenes to bring back a union-organizing bill and publicly defending House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in the waterboarding controversy.

It’s been three weeks since Specter’s defection from the GOP, and while he initially raised some eyebrows among his new colleagues by voting against President Obama’s budget, he is now showing he can be a team player on two of the most controversial topics facing this Congress.

{mosads}He is in the midst of intense negotiations with labor unions and key Democrats to revive the Employee Free Choice Act, a major priority for liberal Democrats and organized labor.

And on Wednesday, Specter stood by Pelosi, who has come under heavy fire from the GOP for accusing the CIA of lying to Congress during the Bush administration about tactics used on detainees.

“The CIA has a very bad record when it comes to — I was about to say ‘candid’; that’s too mild — to honesty,”

Specter, a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told members of the American Law Institute in a lunchtime speech. He cited the Iran-Contra affair and the agency’s effort to obfuscate its role in mining the harbors of Nicaragua.

Specter also backed Pelosi’s call for the CIA to make public its notes from congressional briefings on interrogation tactics.

“Speaker Pelosi wants the notes disclosed,” he said Wednesday. “I think they ought to be, in the interest of transparency.

“The Speaker’s entitled to have as much light shed on this as possible, and so [is] the public. The public is entitled to know what went on there.”

The previous evening, Specter met with Sens. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) to hash out a compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act, also known as card-check. Harkin is the lead Senate sponsor of the bill. Pryor, a conservative, is undecided on the matter.

The bill as originally drafted by Democrats would make it easier for workers to organize by allowing them to form a union when a majority sign petition cards — no longer allowing their employers to insist on holding a secret-ballot election first. Labor officials charge the current rules enable employers to intimidate employees seeking to form a union.

Harkin said that Specter suggested some changes that would enable him to support amended legislation, which Harkin said he would in turn share with labor unions.

On the day he switched parties, Specter declared that he would “not be an automatic 60th vote” for the Democratic Party.

That came weeks after Specter delivered what some observers considered a “death blow” to the union-backed bill, announcing on the Senate floor in March that he would not vote to end a GOP filibuster of the bill.

At the time, however, Specter still planned to run for reelection as a Republican and faced an uphill primary battle against conservative challenger Pat Toomey. Specter’s support for the labor-backed bill would have been a political liability.

{mosads}But Specter is now a Democrat, and his stated opposition to the legislation could hurt him in a Democratic primary should Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.) or another well-respected Democrat run against him.

Last week, former Philadelphia deputy mayor Joe Torsella withdrew from the Democratic primary, but Sestak continues to make noise about a potential challenge.

“Pennsylvania is a pro-union state, particularly in the Democratic primary,” said a labor official.

Specter acknowledged Wednesday that people are working hard to persuade him to seek some alternative.

“When I issued my statement against the pending legislation, I went into the whole detail about how there’s a need for labor law reform and made a lot of proposals for another statute,” he told a group of reporters after his speech. “And you can be assured my telephone has been ringing off the hook as to what I think, because having taken a position, people think I can help mold an answer to the issue. And we do need labor reform.”

Labor officials say Specter seems to have an open mind on the issue.

“He has more flexibility as a Democrat than as a member of the Republican Party, which has the position that anything that helps workers is not acceptable,” said one labor official.

Harkin said he, Specter and Pryor are engaged in detailed negotiations.

“I’m willing to compromise, but it has to be acceptable to labor,” Harkin said.

Specter met with labor unions last week to listen to what they wanted from comprehensive legislation that could serve as an alternative.

He has also told fellow Democrats of his efforts to forge a compromise.

Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) said that Specter sat next to him at last week’s Democratic Conference lunch and “told me what he was doing.”

Bill Samuel, the legislative director of the AFL-CIO, said Harkin, Specter and Pryor are driving the process to reach a deal.

“They are defining the process and they’re taking their task very seriously,” he said. “We’re going to take a look at their options, but we haven’t yet seen them.”

Samuel said that Specter agrees with union officials that organizing rules for workers create “a playing field tilted in favor of big businesses.”

The AFL-CIO on Wednesday circulated a study from Cornell University showing that private-sector employers have become more likely to use intimidating tactics against workers seeking to organize.

The study found that workers are more than twice as likely than in the 1990s to be subjected to interrogation, surveillance and harassment for union activity.

Aaron Blake contributed to this article.