HARRISBURG, Pa. — Former Sen. Arlen Specter, the outspoken Pennsylvania centrist who switched from Republican to Democrat in 2010 in a failed bid to win re-election, died yesterday. He was 82.
Specter, who announced in late August that he was battling cancer, died at his home in Philadelphia from complications of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, said his son Shanin.
Over the years, Specter had fought two previous bouts with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, overcome a brain tumor and survived cardiac arrest following bypass surgery.
Specter rose to prominence in the 1960s as an aggressive Philadelphia prosecutor and as an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission.
A political moderate, Specter was swept into the Senate in the Ronald Reagan landslide of 1980.
Besides Shanin, he is survived by his wife, Joan, son Steve and four granddaughters.