WASHINGTON -- Sen. Arlen Specter notes in his memoirs that he once was introduced as the senator who had managed to alienate the entire electorate in just two Supreme Court confirmations.

Arlen Specter

Few conservatives have forgotten Specter's intense questioning of President Reagan's conservative nominee Robert H. Bork in 1987, or his vote against him. Many considered Specter's role as crucial in the nominee's defeat.

Four years later during confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, Specter infuriated many liberals when he served as chief questioner of Anita Hill, who alleged that Thomas had sexually harassed her. Specter's performance was so controversial that some theater audiences hissed when his name was mentioned in Oliver Stone's movie "JFK," which came out a short time later. The backlash, particularly among women, drew Democrat Lynn H. Yeakel into challenging Specter in 1992. He won by only 3 percentage points.

Specter's toughness in both the Bork and Thomas hearings burnished his credentials as a sturdy independent, and it has generated one of the most intriguing plot lines in the upcoming effort to confirm a successor for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor: How will Specter shape the process now that he is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

The Pennsylvania Republican is under competing pressures, to be sure -- from a White House that expects him to support whomever the president nominates; from moderate constituents who view him as one of the few swing senators capable of defeating a far-right nominee; and from social conservatives who tried to derail his ascent to the Judiciary chairmanship last fall after he made comments they viewed as hostile to potential anti-abortion nominees.

Expectations are high given Specter's vast experience -- he has been involved in the confirmations of eight of the Supreme Court's nine sitting justices. But all sides are wary of the former prosecutor, given his unpredictability and a style that a senatorial colleague once described as "low-key and tenacious, with the ability to burrow in as a questioner and persist."

"Probably Sen. Specter's vote will determine what happens in committee and will determine what happens on the floor of the United States Senate," said Ralph G. Neas, president of the liberal People for the American Way. "He is perhaps the most important vote in the United States Senate."

But Sean Rushton, executive director of the conservative Committee for Justice, noted that despite the uproar over Specter's abortion comments last fall, many conservatives are pleased with how he has handled Bush's judicial nominees since he became Judiciary chairman in January. Specter's support for some Bush's most controversial appeals court nominees -- such as Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla R. Owen and William H. Pryor Jr. -- gave them "a stamp of legitimacy," Rushton said.

"In a strange way he can be very effective because he does have a lot of credibility with moderates and liberals," Rushton said. "We expect and hope he will stay the course."

The prosecutor arrives

Specter spent 12 years as a prosecutor before he joined the Senate, and it became immediately apparent when he arrived that his investigative skills would lend themselves to his role as a member of the Judiciary Committee.

When the Senate weighed whether to elevate Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist to chief justice in 1986, Rehnquist refused to answer many of Specter's questions about the jurisdiction of the courts and what the senator considered "basic constitutional questions."

Specter exasperated Rehnquist to the point that the now-chief justice told an adviser: "I'm through with that guy -- finished with that guy's questions. I've had it with Specter," as Specter and others recount in their memoirs. Specter later said Rehnquist answered barely enough questions to get his vote.

When Reagan named Bork to replace retiring Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. a year later, Specter, having opposed several Reagan nominees to lower courts, was viewed from the outset as a swing vote. In an attempt to win him over, Bork held five hours of private discussions with Specter about his judicial philosophy.

But Specter continued to harbor reservations about Bork's core belief that judges ought to return to the intent of the nation's founders in interpreting the law. Specter also was concerned about Bork's views -- and the way they varied over time -- on questions of free speech, the equal protection clause, whether more power should be shifted to the executive branch, and whether Bork would uphold court precedents on civil rights that Bork had called "fundamentally wrong" in their reasoning.

Neas, a leader of the anti-Bork movement, said Specter was "probably the most well-prepared senator." During Bork's 30 hours of testimony -- over 12 days of hearings -- Specter grilled the nominee, continually pinpointing the shifts in Bork's statements about key cases.

Specter eventually concluded that he could not vote for Bork because he could not be sure that Bork would uphold key precedents. But he later wrote in his book, "Passion for Truth," that Bork's willingness to answer almost any question was preferable to the say-as-little-as-possible approach adopted by subsequent nominees after they saw what happened to Bork.

One of Specter's statements on the subject might come to haunt him in the upcoming hearings, when Democrats, in particular, will press for answers:

"In my judgment the Senate should resist, if not refuse, to confirm Supreme Court nominees who refuse to answer questions on fundamental issues."

'Saving' Clarence Thomas

Specter was asked to take a leading role in the second round of Thomas hearings as the Republican senators tried to figure out how to get Thomas confirmed once the furor had erupted over Hill's allegations. They reasoned that Specter's prosecutorial experience and his support from many women's groups -- due to his stance in favor of abortion rights -- would give him more credibility than conservative colleagues in questioning Hill's account.

Former Sen. John C. Danforth, Thomas' chief defender, wrote in his book "Resurrection" that those GOP senators worried that if Specter were asked to question Thomas, too, he might see himself "not as an advocate but as an independent seeker of truth," possibly hurting Thomas' chances of confirmation.

In the first round of hearings, Specter had set out his ideological disagreements with Thomas on a number of issues, including affirmative action. As in the Bork hearings, Specter questioned Thomas about his shifting views on constitutional issues, ultimately determining that Thomas was qualified for the post.

But all that was forgotten once Specter slid into the role of Hill's inquisitor. Other Republicans asked questions of the then-Unversity of Oklahoma law professor, but Specter doggedly chipped away at what he viewed as inconsistencies in her testimony.

He questioned why she had followed Thomas, her supervisor, from one job to the next after the alleged sexual harassment occurred; why she had never reported her story; why she had not taken notes about his alleged comments when she was meticulous about doing so on other work-related matters. Many Americans sympathetic to Hill were furious.

"The senator I saw during Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas -- I quite frankly didn't recognize," said Neas of Specter. "It was like totally a different person."

On one point -- whether Hill had ever been told by Senate staff members that knowledge of her allegations might lead Thomas to withdraw from the process before they became public (as was reported by a national newspaper) -- Specter asked Hill the same question nine different ways. Hill initially said she did not recall anyone making such a suggestion but subsequently amended her testimony to say a Senate staffer did indicate Thomas might not "continue the process."

When Thomas later came before the committee for questioning, Specter told him that he believed Hill's statements amounted to "flat-out perjury." "He saved Clarence Thomas," said Paul M. Weyrich, chairman of the conservative Free Congress Foundation. "If it had not been for him, Thomas would have been defeated."

Mounting pressures

Specter's important and often iconoclastic role in past nomination battles provides an element of suspense when it comes to what he will do as Judiciary chairman in dealing with controversies over O'Connor's replacement.

Observers on the right and left agree on one thing: they expect him to prepare exhaustively once a nominee is named.

Barry Caldwell, who was Specter's counsel during the Thomas hearings and his chief of staff during the confirmations of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, said he used to describe working for Specter as "a perpetual bar exam."

"You just have to be on," Caldwell said. "We knew he was going to read a lot of opinions, so we had to make sure we read more than he had.

"So I think during Thomas the three of us [staff members] probably read everything that now-Justice Thomas has ever written, just knowing that the boss was going to look at it."

This time, many conservatives look for Specter to use his intense preparations to maintain control of the process and defend Bush's nominee. But Rushton said Specter more likely will act as an impartial judge, allowing senators to ask tough questions while pulling back those who verge on badgering the nominee.

"He'll be able to ask pointed questions, but I think probably he won't be able to take the role of inquisitor," Rushton said. "It's harder for him to do as chairman."

Weyrich said he thinks Specter will feel pressure from Republican colleagues who "really pinned his ears back" last fall after Specter said it was "unlikely" that judges who opposed Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion, could get through the confirmation process. Specter has said he employs no litmus test and that his comments were misinterpreted.

In a recent interview, Specter said the Judiciary Committee chairmanship would not constrain his line of questioning. His additional duty, he said, is to make sure the president's first Supreme Court nomination is voted out of committee and gets considered by all 100 senators. But his responsibility ends there, he said.

"I have promised the president that I would give his nominees prompt hearings to get them out of committee," he said. "But that leaves me the independence of my vote on the floor."