Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/specters-switch-further-tilts-senate-power-toward-democrats Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Long-time GOP Sen. Arlen Specter said Tuesday he will switch parties and join the Democrats, bringing the party within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. Political reporters assess the news. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JUDY WOODRUFF: Our lead story: Senate Republicans suffered a major defection today. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania announced he's leaving the party.His switch moved the balance of power in Congress even more decisively to the Democrats.The announcement sent shockwaves through the Capitol, and it put Senate Democrats just one seat away from a 60-vote majority, enough to defeat any filibuster. SEN. ARLEN SPECTER, D-Penn.: One item that I want to emphasize, that I will not be changing my own personal independence or my own votes to individual issues. I will not be an automatic 60th vote. JUDY WOODRUFF: But the 79-year-old Specter also said the Republican Party's shift to the right in recent years has put his political philosophy more in line with the Democrats. SEN. ARLEN SPECTER: When you take a look at the Pennsylvania Republican electorate, several hundred thousand Republicans shifted last year, and it has a bleak picture. We do not have a dominant voice there. But we find, I think regrettably, that the extremes of both parties are taking over. JUDY WOODRUFF: The background is Specter faced potential trouble winning re-election as a Republican in 2010. He would have had a difficult primary challenge from a former GOP congressman, Pat Toomey, who led by double digits in recent polls.Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said it was that dire political reality that more than anything forced Specter's hand.SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-Ky., Senate minority leader: This is a Pennsylvania story about his inability, according to his pollster, to be re-nominated by the Republican Party or to be elected as an independent, and so he made a totally political decision. JUDY WOODRUFF: But Democratic majority leader Harry Reid said the switch had more to do with how the Republicans treated Specter.SEN. HARRY REID, D-Nev., Senate majority leader: These people in the Republican caucus got this right-wing guy to run against him. Well, how is that? Does that make you feel pretty welcome in your caucus, if you knew people were out there trying to do that? JUDY WOODRUFF: At the White House, press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Obama called Specter to welcome him to the Democratic Party.ROBERT GIBBS, White House press secretary: The president reached Senator Specter, told the senator that, after hearing the news that he was going switch parties, that he had the president's full support and that he was thrilled to have him as a member of the Democratic Party. JUDY WOODRUFF: Gibbs also said the president would be happy to campaign for Specter.In the meantime, the Democrats' drive to get to 60 votes in the Senate now turns on the still-undecided Senate race in Minnesota. Democrat Al Franken holds a narrow lead over Republican Norm Coleman. The legal fight to name a winner goes before that state's Supreme Court in June.