Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter is a Democrat again after a decades-long turn among Republicans, a defection that has the Republicans warning about the perils of unchecked power only a few years after they controlled both the White House and Congress.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said yesterday after Senator Specter made his startling switch, ''The threat to the country presented ... by this defection really relates to the issue of whether or not in the United States of America our people want the majority party to have whatever it wants without restraint, without a check or balance.''
The move left Democrats with 59 votes in the Senate, and hoping that Al Franken can finally win a marathon recount in Minnesota and become their 60th.
That's the number needed to overcome any Republican filibuster aimed at blocking President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda.
Even at their high point during George W.Bush's presidency, when Republicans controlled both houses of Congress, they were well shy of 60 seats in the Senate.
But they brought the Senate to the brink of a crisis in 2005, when their leadership claimed the rules permitted them to confirm conservative judicial appointees by simple majority after they failed repeatedly to muster the strength needed to overcome Democratic filibusters.
A bipartisan group of senators eventually intervened to defuse the crisis. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada was Democratic leader at the time, and Senator McConnell was the second-ranking Republican in the Senate.
Senator Specter was a Democrat until 1965, when he ran successfully on the Republican ticket for district attorney in Philadelphia.
His switch triggered something of a debate among Republicans, who lost not only the White House in 2008 but fell deeper into the minority in both the House and Senate.
Maine Senator Olympia Snowe, one of a few remaining Republican moderates in the Senate, called Senator Specter's decision another sign that the party needs to move toward the centre.
''Ultimately, we're heading to having the smallest political tent in history, the way events have been unfolding,'' she said.''If the Republican Party fully intends to become a majority party in the future, it must move from the far right back toward the middle.''
But Senator McConnell said the Republicans were a broad party.
''We have not done very well in the north-east the last couple of years,'' he said.
''We haven't done as well any places as we would like to have done in the last couple of years.
''We intend to be competitive on a nationwide basis. I do not accept that we are going to be a regional party. And we're working very hard to compete throughout the country.''
Democrats couldn't resist taunting their rivals. Senator Reid, the majority leader, said, ''I welcome Senator Specter and his moderate voice to our diverse caucus.''
Head of the Democratic campaign committee, Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey, called the development ''proof positive that the Republican Party is so out of touch with Americans that they're losing one of its most prominent leaders.''
Senator Specter said he did not intend to become an ''automatic 60th vote'' for Democrats trying to approve President Obama's agenda of health care, energy and education by the end of the year.
He reaffirmed his opposition to legislation making it easier for workers to form unions, a top priority for organised labor and backed by the White House and Democratic leadership in Congress.
Senator Specter cast one of only three Republican votes for the president's stimulus bill earlier this year.
The five-term senator repeatedly cast his switch as a decision of principle. But he also said his own pollster had told him his chances of winning a Republican primary in Pennsylvania next year were bleak.
Senator Mel Martinez said in a private meeting with Republicans, Specter gave a purely political explanation. ''He said, 'I've looked at the polls. I can't win as a Republican, I can't win as an independent. The only way I have a shot is to be a Democrat.'' AP
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