Arlen Specter, an independent-minded moderate who spent three decades in the U.S. Senate, died Sunday of cancer. He was 82 years old.
Resilient, smart and aggressive, the former prosecutor frequently riled conservatives and liberals on his way to becoming Pennsylvania's longest-serving U.S. senator. He was elected to the Senate for five terms starting in 1980. He left the Republican Party because he said it had become too conservative.
Specter was born in Kansas in 1930. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1951, then served in the Air Force before attending Yale Law School.
