Performance based Seniority

After the initial euphoria of Sen. Specter’s switch, his votes and comments were both rather disappointing.  Specifically he voted no on the budget bill, spoke out against a public option for universal healthcare, said he wouldn’t change his vote on the unionizing bill, and generally indicated that he wouldn’t be a loyal Democrat.

I can’t help but thinking that’s related to the Paul Kane’s news that Specter just got stripped of Seniority and thus plum committee assignments on the Democratic side.  He’ll get his back post 2010 election, assuming he’s still in the Senate.  On the whole, this makes him more vulnerable to a primary challenge and should increase his incentives to move to the left.

This seems fairly sensible to me so long as it didn’t violate whatever deal was made in private.  I’m guessing the deal didn’t specify when he’d get his exciting new Democratic rank.  Prior to this, Senators had been fairly supportive of Specter in regards to the coming primary.  One possible explanation Andrew Gelman provided was that Senators are sympathetic when other Senators face primary challenges.   Another interesting possibility raised by Josh Tucker  is that there’s some long game planning with regards to the Senators from Maine who might be willing to swap themselves if they think Specter got a good deal.  That’s why I think it’s important to keep to the private details of the deal, as I would guess Senators Collins and Snowe are aware of the broad strokes of what we’re offering.