A number of Senators are unhappy with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA), and this time it's not conservative Republicans disappointed in his actions as Judiciary Chairman. Alexander Bolton has the story for The Hill.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), has angered colleagues facing reelection in 2006 by cutting $1 billion in pet projects from his subcommittee’s spending bill to pay for programs popular with Democrats and centrist Republicans.

Historically, the labor, health and human services, and education bill is one of the most project-loaded of the annual spending bills, say congressional observers who track what they denounce as pork-barrel spending.

A senior GOP aide said yesterday that members of the appropriations committee who are facing election next year are balking at Specter’s plan to cut their projects. Specter is chairman of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health, and Human Services (HHS) and Education Subcommittee.

[...]

Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee, who, like Specter, is a centrist Republican, agreed to the $1 billion in project cuts after it became clear that Senate negotiators would not support the bill otherwise, said a House GOP aide familiar with the negotiations. Regula is a member of the Main Street Republican Partnership, a coalition of Senate and House Republican centrists.

[...]

The savings will be used to pay for the fight against the global spread of AIDS; to increase funding for LIHEAP, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; and to fund new construction of health-preparedness facilities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said a House GOP aide familiar with the legislation.

In April 2004, Specter lamented moderate Republicans' loss of power in recent years for a profile by The New Yorker's Philip Gourevitch.

“When I came to the Senate, we had a lot of members of the Wednesday Club”—a weekly gathering of Republican moderates. “You had Lowell Weicker, you had Bob Stafford, you had Bob Packwood, you had Mark Hatfield, you had [John] Chafee, you had John Danforth, you had Jim Jeffords, you had John Heinz. Now there are only a few of us. And it’s important. When Joe Biden needs a co-sponsor, he comes to Arlen Specter. That kind of balance is really important for the country. It’s more than the soul of the Republican Party; it’s to have some balance within the Party and within the two-party system.”

George McGovern expressed similar feelings about a slightly earlier period in the Senate during his interview for this site earlier this week.

I’d love to see the return of the kind of moderate, constructive Republicans who were in office when I was part of the Congress. I’m thinking of people like Jack Javits of New York; I’m thinking about George Aiken, the old moderate Republican from Vermont; I’m thinking about Senator Cooper of Kentucky. There was a whole range of them that I thought provided a constructive and helpful contribution in politics.

Even if many would have preferred a Democratic Senator to represent Pennsylvania during last year's campaign, when Specter was seeking a fourth term, it's beneficial to the country to have moderates like Specter in both parties. And like both Specter and McGovern implied, it's too bad there aren't many near the center of the aisle any more who can bring the two parties together on key issues.