U.S. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania declared his candidacy for
   President of the United States on March 30, 1995. That announcement
   followed a whirlwind 100 days of exploratory travels that drew
   enthusiastic support across the country, along with organizational and
   fundraising triumphs.
   
    Sen. Specter is a fiscal/economic conservative and social
   libertarian, in the spirit of his former Senate colleague Barry
   Goldwater, who said government should stay out of our pocketbooks, off
   our backs and out of our bedrooms. Sen. Specter introduced legislation
   in March 1995 to replace the nation's Byzantine income tax system with
   a simple 20 percent flat tax on businesses and individuals. His plan
   would spur economic growth, increase fairness and compliance and save
   taxpayers billions of dollars and hours. Sen. Specter is pressing to
   remove the anti-abortion plank from the national platform.
   
    Sen. Specter chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He
   also chairs the Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Labor,
   Health & Human Services and Education, which oversees all federal
   health and education spending. He has introduced several bills that
   emphasize preventive health care and cost cutting without new
   bureaucracy.
   
    Sen. Specter began his public service career as Assistant District
   Attorney of Philadelphia, winning the first national conviction of
   labor racketeers. He quickly earned a reputation as a tough and
   effective prosecutor, which led to an appointment in 1964 as assistant
   counsel to the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of
   President Kennedy. He is credited with a major role in the
   investigation.
   
    His legal achievements led to his election as District Attorney of
   Philadelphia in 1965, the first election of a Republican in more than
   18 years, and re-election in 1969 by more than 100,000 votes. During
   his two consecutive terms, he helped to restore death penalty statutes
   in Pennsylvania, worked to improve prison conditions and prosecuted
   consumer fraud cases. He fought relentlessly to convict corrupt public
   officials, rapists and hardened criminals.
   
    Arlen Specter was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1980. He has
   established himself as a legislative leader on crime, drugs and
   terrorism, and is the only candidate with hands-on crime-fighting
   experience. He has introduced several bills to limit the endless
   appeals in capital cases, to make the death penalty a meaningful
   deterrent. His Armed Career Criminal Act, signed into law in 1984 and
   expanded in the 1986, makes it a federal offense with a mandatory 15
   years to life sentence for a career criminal found in possession of a
   firearm. This law has been especially effective against major drug
   dealers. Sen. Specter also crafted the Terrorist Prosecution Act, a
   tough anti-terrorism bill, and wrote legislation creating the
   independent CIA Inspector General, the only reform legislation to
   emerge from the Iran-Contra affair.
   
    Arlen Specter was born to immigrant parents in Wichita, Kansas, on
   Feb. 12, 1930, and grew up in the small town of Russell. After
   graduating Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951,
   he served stateside in the Air Force Office of Special Investigations
   for two years during the Korean War. He graduated in 1956 from Yale
   Law School where he was an editor of the law journal.
   
    Sen. Specter lives in Philadelphia with his wife, Philadelphia
   Councilwoman Joan Specter. They have two sons, Shanin and Stephen, and
   a granddaughter, Silvi Specter.