GOP Ousts 4 Veteran Texas House Democrats

WASHINGTON – Republicans defeated four veteran Texas Democrats and snatched an open Democratic seat in Kentucky on Tuesday as they marched to the brink of extending their decade-long control of the House.

Democrats answered back, knocking off the longest-serving Republican in the chamber, Rep. Phil Crane, an Illinois conservative from Chicago’s wealthy suburbs. But their longshot chance of gaining 12 seats to end Republican command seemed dead with less than three dozen of the 435 House races still to be decided.

“Despite Democratic claims to the contrary, we are going to be the majority party in the 109th Congress,” declared Rep. Thomas Reynolds, R-N.Y., who heads the GOP’s House campaign operation.

By early Wednesday in the East, Republicans had won 216 seats and were leading in 16 others, which could give them at least 232 seats, 14 more than the majority needed for House control.

Republicans held a 227-205 advantage over Democrats in the outgoing House, plus two GOP-leaning vacant seats and an independent who sided with Democrats.

Months after Texas’ dominant state Republicans redrew congressional district lines to the GOP’s advantage, the fiercely disputed plan bore fruit and fueled the party’s hopes of holding its House majority. Among its chief architects were House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who was easily re-elected.

Texas Democratic Reps. Charles Stenholm, a leading fiscal conservative and power on the Agriculture Committee, and Martin Frost, a one-time member of his party’s leadership, were both defeated, as were Reps. Max Sandlin and Nick Lampson. The four had a total of 68 years of House experience.

The apparent failure of either party to make dramatic House gains underscored how the national debates over Iraq and the economy provided no decisive help to either side.

Earlier in the evening, Nick Clooney, former Cincinnati television anchor and father of actor George Clooney, lost his attempt to hold an open northeastern Kentucky seat for Democrats. He was beaten by GOP businessman Geoff Davis.

Democrats fared better in the well-to-do suburbs north of Chicago, where they defeated Crane, whose 35-year House career was the longest among the chamber’s Republicans. The victor was Melissa Bean, who was born seven years before Crane entered the House and characterized him as out of touch with his district.

They also forced freshman GOP Rep. Max Burns, a top target of theirs, to battle for re-election from a Democratic-leaning east Georgia seat. Republican Nancy Naples was trailing in her attempt to hold an open seat for her party in a district around Buffalo, N.Y.

In Connecticut, the GOP overcame Democratic efforts to tie some Republican incumbents to President Bush, whose popularity is low there. Maverick GOP Rep. Christopher Shays and former CIA agent Rep. Rob Simmons staved off Democratic rivals.

Frost’s bitter race against GOP Rep. Pete Sessions was the country’s most expensive; the pair raised $8.4 million by late October, split almost equally. Stenholm was defeated by freshman Rep. Randy Neugebauer in a district in which two-thirds of the voters were new to Stenholm.

Another endangered Texas Democrat, Chet Edwards, held a slender lead against his challenger, despite the influence of one of his Crawford, Texas, constituents: President Bush.

Incumbents were coasting to re-election from Minnesota to Florida as well, including former presidential hopeful Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio. Also returned for a second House term was Rep. Katherine Harris, R-Fla., who was her state’s secretary of state during the pivotal Florida recount during the 2000 presidential election.

Three candidates with congressional pedigrees triumphed. Democrat Daniel Lipinski won the Chicago seat held by his father, William, for 22 years; Democrat Dan Boren of Oklahoma, son of a former senator, won a House seat; and Republican Connie Mack, namesake son of the former senator, grabbed the Fort Myers, Fla., seat vacated by Porter Goss when he was chosen to head the CIA.

Though both parties – and outside political groups – spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this year’s House races, all but a mere three dozen were considered locked up in advance of Tuesday’s balloting. Democrats needed to win two-thirds of the competitive contests to take a 218-seat majority.

The expectation of little overall change also illustrated the rock-solid advantages held by many candidates – mostly incumbents – in fund raising and in districts drawn to favor one party or the other.

If Republicans held control, it would mark the first time they would have had the chamber for a dozen consecutive years since the 12 years that ended in January 1933.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., both easily breezed to new terms.

As usual, many House races revolved around local issues and personalities. To the degree that the presidential race and the war, terrorism, jobs or other national issues were prominent, they were generally shaded to regional tastes.

For example, in an effort to show Stenholm could work with members of both parties, one of his ads pictured President Bush and Ronald Reagan.

But in a Connecticut district where Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry was running strong, Democrats aired a commercial in which the face of incumbent GOP Simmons changed into that of Bush’s.

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