The Hill: How to Lose a House Seat -- It's Not Easy

6/16/2003

From: Jonathan E. Kaplan of The Hill, 202-628-8529

WASHINGTON, June 16 -- House Speaker Sam Rayburn (D-Texas) didn't speak to freshman lawmakers. It just wasn't worth it; their presence could be attributed to a lucky electoral accident. These days, that wouldn't be such a good idea. Freshmen -- barring some horrendous political catastrophe -- generally are here to stay, as staff writer Jonathan E. Kaplan details in the June 17, 2003, issue of The Hill. It takes something like singing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr" on the House floor during the Clinton impeachment, as freshman Rep. Mike Pappas (R-N.J.) did, to lose one's seat.

How do you lose a House seat?

It is so uncompetitive that once you're in, it's easy to stay

By Jonathan E. Kaplan

"Anyone could be elected once by accident. Beginning with the second term, it's worth paying attention," the legendary House Speaker Sam Rayburn was fond of saying.

For that reason, Rayburn, a Texas Democrat who served as Speaker from 1940 to 1961, rarely spoke to first-term lawmakers. Then-Rep. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), an exception who was confronted, voiced surprise that Rayburn even knew who he was. Rayburn reportedly replied: "How many one-armed Japs do we have?"

Today, first term members get more respect. Both parties say that, given the Republicans' slim majority, neither side can afford to avoid or to haze freshmen. At worst, House leaders act as chaperones in treating them like teenagers on their first date.

According to lawmakers and academics, gaining entry to Congress is akin to gaining admission to an Ivy League university or a exclusive country club: the odds of getting in are quite long, but once you're there, you're in for good.

To be sure, some aspects of that broad trend are easier to explain: weakened party machinery, uninterested voters and expensive elections have created a striking similarity between Congress and monopolistic industries. Both have high barriers to entry.

The academic research on weakened parties and the decline in voter interest is well-documented.

Parties began losing their effectiveness when voters starting splitting their tickets and basing their votes more on personality than on party affiliations.

Today, lawmakers cannot count on their parties to carry them to victory, "thus they run campaigns independent of party and based on their personal characteristics," said David Brady, who studies political parties at the Hoover Institution at Stanford.

If freshmen running for reelection cannot count on their party's machinery, they can barely rely on voters either. Voter turnout, especially in mid-term elections has historically been very low. According to the Federal Election Commission website, slightly more than 38 percent of those eligible to vote did so in 1974 and 1994, two election years in which Democrats and Republicans, respectively, swept into Congress.

That means that in order to regain office, would-be lawmakers must increasingly rely on their own resources.

Yet the biggest factor has been gerrymandering congressional districts to favor one party or the other.

David King, a Harvard professor, said: "Freshmen elected in 2002 were elected in districts shaped for their party. Most were safe from the day they took office.

"Freshmen in 2004 should on average have the easiest go of it. (But) the effects of redistricting don't last past two to three years because district composition changes fairly rapidly."

Figures provided by Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego, and computed by The Hill show that slightly more than nine in 10 of all freshmen lawmakers were reelected in the five contests between 1992 to 2000, a volatile period in which control of Congress shifted from the Democrats to the Republicans.

Elections such as those held in 1982 and 1996 both could be seen as correctives since they resulted in relatively heavy losses for freshmen who must defend seats traditionally held by the opposing political party.

For example, in 1980, 34 Republicans won House seats.

According to Jacobson's figures, 13 freshmen lost in 1982 as Democrats picked up 27 seats, which still produced an 83.3 reelection rate for freshmen.

After the GOP sweep in 1994, 13 first-term Republicans and one Democrat lost. Still, nearly 95 percent managed to hold their seats and return in 1996.

Ex-Rep. Michael Flanagan (R-Ill.) is a perfect example of someone who lost in 1996 because he won a traditionally Democratic seat. In 1996, Rod Blagojevich, now governor, trounced Flanagan, 64 to 36 percent.

Without the corrective elections, in which freshmen lose in relatively large numbers, the reelection rate would be staggeringly high.

Some lose because their previous victories were upsets in unlikely districts; others get dragged into local political battles. Democrat Rep. Dennis Moore (Kan.) defeated Rep. Vincent Snowbarger (R), who was beset by internal GOP divisions within the state between centrists and conservatives.

Consider New York's Felix Grucci who was beaten by Tim Bishop in the 2002 mid-term elections.

Grucci conceded nine days after the 2002 mid-term election after losing a race that centered on a campaign advertisement accusing Bishop, his Democratic opponent, of ignoring allegations from rape victims when he was president of Southampton College.

Bishop fought back, leveling his own charge that Grucci's family-owned fireworks factory dumped chemicals into ground water.

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) both funneled resources into the closely fought race, allowing Bishop to eke out a win in a decidedly Republican district.

In 1998, GOP Rep. Mike Pappas (N.J.) humiliated himself by singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Kenneth Starr," on the House floor.

Others on the freshman wall of losers include ex-Rep. Wes Cooley (R-Oregon), who falsely told voters that he had served in the Army Special Forces during the Korean War.

Former Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (D-Pa.) lost after she cast the crucial vote that allowed passage of Clinton's first budget package.

Republican lawmakers began to sing, "Bye, bye Marjorie," on the House floor after she cast her vote.

First-term members such as Rep. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) who might be regarded as potential targets in the 2004 election are trying to keep a low profile.

Harris, who was pummeled in the media for her role in the 2000 election recount, told The Hill that that period in her career was a fluke and insisted that she detests the limelight and loves working behind the scenes.

She's not alone in knowing both ambition and insecurity. The same tension prompts most of the 33 first-term lawmakers to be diligent in preparing for re-election.

"I take nothing for granted," she said. "I still think I am vulnerable," even though she won her seat with 54 percent of the vote.

Despite today's high freshman reelection rates, their leaders treat them as vulnerable.

"They go to tremendous lengths to help out," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told The Hill. "If you need help but did not get it, it is because you did not ask for it. It's the most enlightened form of self-interest."

Cole said Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, has held fundraisers for all eight freshmen on his committee.

Aside from raising money and moral support, freshman lawmakers are usually given at least one solid committee assignment.

On the Republican side, eight lawmakers were given seats on the important House Transportation or Financial Services Committees. Transportation allows lawmakers to deliver roads, bridges, and airports to their districts; Financial Services is seen as a good fundraising vehicle.

Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) is helping fellow Republican freshmen maximize the power of their congressional offices by advising them on how to use franked mail and write newsletters.

Across the aisle, Democrats have a similar operation, where aides to Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) are assigned to act as liaisons to freshmen.

Bishop added that his leadership team has been "enormously supportive."

Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-N.Y.), chairman of the NRCC, said freshmen have to focus on three areas to succeed: governing, fundraising and politicking.

Reynolds cited Rep. Jack Quinn (R-N.Y.), whose Buffalo district is heavily Democratic, as a lawmaker who did everything right to increase the percentage of his victories steadily since his first win in 1992, by 6 percentage points.

Quinn walloped his Democratic opponent by nearly 30 points in his first bid to be reelected, in 1994 -- a Republican year to be sure. Since he was first elected, his share of the vote has not dipped below 54 percent.

Reynolds maintained that few House seats are competitive -- an admission that most members, particularly freshmen, aren't vulnerable: "Both sides pick up a seat or two (in each election). You just hope it is not you who loses."