One of U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh's contributions as Governor of Pennsylvania was the tourism promotion slogan "You've got a friend in Pennsylvania," which lasted for a while into Governor Robert Casey's administation. Sen. Larry Craig now has a friend in Pennsylvania, Sen. Arlen Specter.
Specter, a contrarian Senator with a demonstrated ability to stitch together electoral majorities out of unique combinations of political minorities, has suggested to Craig both publicly and privately that he not resign, and that he seek a retrial on the disorderly conduct charges that he pled guilty to. A former district attorney of Philadelphia and a successful Philadelphia trial lawyer (whose son Shanin is one of the most financially successful trial lawyers in America), Specter says that the odds would favor Craig being acquitted if he went to trial.
An effort by Craig to seek a reversal of his guilty plea and a trial of the charges would likely be opposed by the District Attorney. Craig could appeal any judicial decision that went against him in his search for a new trial, and easily run out his term.
Craig could run for re-election saying he wants a new trial, and the election would long be over before he got a new trial. This scenario might either give us seven more years of Larry Craig, or six years of Democrat Larry LaRocco; it could also lead to Craig's defeat in a Rpublican primary.
Specter, Craig has now said, influenced his decision to say he INTENDS to resign on September 30, instead of saying that he is submitting his resignation, effective September 30. Craig is now holding out the possiblity that he will not be resigning after all.
This might be about negotiations for a lobbying position. Republican leaders in the Senate and the President certainly could be very helpful to a new lobbyist if they were to take an active interest in encouraging clients to hire him. My guess is that Republican leaders would not mind too much if this talk were about getting the best possible roster of lobbying clients.
The nightmare for Republican Senate leaders would be if this turns out not to be about a lobbying position. If this turns to be a serious bid to retain his Senate seat, Americans could be hearing about Larry Craig for a long time. The last thing Republican leaders want the Republican Party to be known as is the party of closeted gays.
Specter's experience with the legal prosecutions of closeted gays engaging in one form or another of public sex goes back to his days as a Philadelphia assistant district attorney and his days as the lead investigator of Philadelphia magisterial corruption.
One of the reasons he is proud of having gotten rid of the magisterial system and replaced it with a system of Municipal Court judges, Specter wrote in his autobiography A PASSION FOR TRUTH, was that gays were routinely extorted by the magistrates and the constables. Many were willing to pay a bribe of far more than the fines they would have been subject if convicted because the bribe, unlike the conviction, would not be public record.
Specter certainly has a point in the area of due process of law. Craig never consulted a lawyer before pleading guilty, and the Republican demands for him to step down were made without any investigation by Ethics Committee or any clear standard of allegation against him. The rule the Ethics Committee is investigating whether he violated is the vague one of bringing disrepute to the Senate, a rule which can mean whatever a necessary majority of Senators (a majority for censure, two thirds for expulsion) wants it to mean.
Craig would have a difficult time getting a fair trial from the Ethics Committee because all of them have to face the voters. Specter himself is getting a taste of voter and media indignation at his position, and he has now stopped commenting on the Craig matter.
For decades now, most states, including Pennsylvania, have had State Ethics Commissions that have appointed Commissioners and staff who investigate wrongdoing by public officials. This serves to both make deals not investigate--as happened in the House in the late 20th and early 21st Centuries--much harder to make, and to take the onus of investigation away from elected officials who are subject to media generated popular pressures.
Common Cause and various media have long called for such a body at the federal level, but Congress has generally resisted it. Members of Congress who study the Craig case carefully might well conclude that it is in the interest of Congress and its individual Members to have such a body investigating members, rathers than having their colleagues do so.