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Larger Dem majority in Congress?

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In the last week of January, five members of Congress joined the hottest demographic group on Capitol Hill: Republicans who are heading for the exits.

Reps. Tom Davis of Virginia, Kenny Hulshof of Missouri, Ron Lewis of Kentucky, Dave Weldon of Florida and James Walsh of New York are among 25 Republican members of the House of Representatives who've announced their resignations or retirements. The party is closing in quickly on its record of 27 House retirements, set in 1952.

Hulshof is running for governor; the others are retiring.

"It's become an epidemic," said David Johnson, a Republican consultant and strategist based in Atlanta.

While some members, such as Hulshof, are leaving to pursue new political opportunities, most observers say that the mass departures are the result of the loss of Republican control in the 2006 elections, lackluster fundraising and low morale.

So far, only five House Democrats have announced that they're leaving, either to retire or to run for Senate seats.

Prospects look equally bright for Democrats in the Senate, where five Republican veterans — John Warner of Virginia, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, Larry Craig of Idaho and Wayne Allard of Colorado — are ready to hang it up.

It adds up to a tough year for Republicans, who at a minimum will face a big loss of seniority and experience when the 111th Congress convenes next January. Analysts predict that the party will be hard-pressed to keep Democrats from expanding their 232-199 House majority.

"It means that whatever little chance there was — and it always was a little chance — that they could take back the House is pretty much gone. . . . Open seats are always easier to win," said Robert Smith, a professor of political science at San Francisco State University. He said that many retiring Republicans had discovered that after running the House for more than a decade, "it's not as satisfying to go to the other side."

Much of the Democratic excitement is focused on the party's ability to attract big-time cash.

Outgunning Republicans in the money chase for the first time in at least two decades, Democrats raised a record $67.5 million for House races last year and finished the year with more than $35 million in cash.

"The American people are energized and inspired by Democrats' agenda of change and the strong candidates we've recruited across the country," said Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

At least 10 of the retiring House members belong to the centrist Republican Main Street Partnership, veterans such as Virginia's Davis, New York's Walsh and Minnesota's Jim Ramstad. Some observers predict that the Republican candidates who are nominated to replace them are likely to be more conservative.

Johnson, who worked on Republican former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign and has overseen numerous congressional races, said that four more House Republicans could step aside this year. That would break the party's record.

"I would say there's a good possibility, depending on how the polls continue to look," Johnson said. "The Republican brand right now is damaged. Voters are not blaming the Democratic Congress, even though the polls show that Congress is held in such low esteem. Voters are blaming Republicans more than they're blaming the Democrats who are in power. . . . All of a sudden we're playing defense."

Only 33 percent of Americans gave Congress a positive job rating in an ABC-Washington Post poll conducted last week. However, an earlier poll by the same organizations found that 54 percent of respondents still want Democrats to control Congress next year, compared with 40 percent who want Republicans back in charge. The findings were nearly identical to those of a USA Today-Gallup poll in December.

Republicans acknowledge that they face an uphill fight this year, but their leaders are trying to put the best face on their situation.

Julie Shutley, the deputy communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, predicted that the party will be in a good position to replace all 25 of its departing members with Republicans. "We feel like we have a very good Republican bench of candidates in the districts that are going to be open seats," she said.

Some analysts regard the exodus of Republicans as normal, the result of natural rhythms that occur in a two-party system, particularly after a watershed election such as 2006, when Democrats won control of both houses of Congress. Under this theory, the party that wins control often will consolidate its power in elections two years later.

Democrats, of course, are hoping for a sweep next November: winning back the White House and strengthening their majorities on Capitol Hill. Or at least winning 60 Senate seats so they have a veto-proof majority if a Republican wins the White House. They're hoping that increased turnout and grass-roots energy in the presidential race will bolster their congressional candidates.

The Republicans' money problems are compounded by an unpopular war in Iraq, an economy that's quickly going south and President Bush's low approval ratings, Smith said.

Johnson said Republicans "haven't adapted to life in the minority" and that the party lacked a cohesive strategy to rebound. He gave credit to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat who offers a very different public image from that of Newt Gingrich, the former Georgia congressman who led the House after Republicans won control in 1994. That's the last time the parties traded control.

"Part of the Republican problem right now that I see as a strategist is our communications effort," Johnson said. "We don't have any good communicators. We don't seem to stay on message. We come across as grumpy old men. I hate to say it, but that's part of the problem. We're not telegenic on TV. We're going against Nancy Pelosi, who could be damaged but — I have to take my hat off to her — she's done an excellent job with the media. Nothing seems to stick on her like everything stuck on Newt Gingrich."

HOUSE SEATS OPENING UP

Representative...............Reason for leaving

Tom Lantos, D-Calif. ........Retiring

Mark Udall, D-Colo. ..........Running for Senate

Tom Allen, D-Maine...........Running for Senate

Tom Udall, D-N.M. ............Running for Senate

Michael McNulty, D-N.Y. ...Running for Senate

Terry Everett, R-Ala. ..........Retiring

Rick Renzi, R-Ariz. .............Retiring

John Doolittle, R-Calif. .......Retiring

Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. .....Retiring

Tom Tancredo, R-Colo. .....Retiring

Dave Weldon, R-Fla. ..........Retiring

Jerry Weller, R-Ill. ...............Retiring

Ray LaHood, R-Ill. ..............Retiring

Ron Lewis, R-Ky. ................Retiring

Jim McCrery, R-La. .............Retiring

Richard Baker, R-La. ...........Resigned

Jim Ramstad, R-Minn. .........Retiring

Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo. .........Running for governor

Charles "Chip" Pickering, R-Miss. Retiring

James Saxton, R-N.J. ..............Retiring

Mike Ferguson, R-N.J. ........Retiring

Heather Wilson, R-N.M. ......Running for Senate

Steve Pearce, R-N.M. .........Running for Senate

James Walsh, R-N.Y. ..........Retiring

David Hobson, R-Ohio ........Retiring

Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio .......Retiring

Ralph Regula, R-Ohio .........Retiring

John Peterson, R-Pa. ..........Retiring

Tom Davis, R-Va. ................Retiring

Barbara Cubin, R-Wyo. .......Retiring

Source: Cook Political Report

McClatchy Newspapers 2008
 
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Anonymous

Guest
February 10, 2008
The Road To a GOP Minority
By George Will

LEE COUNTY, Fla. -- Coconut Road near Fort Myers looks like any other concrete ribbon near housing developments, golf courses and shopping malls in this state's booming southwest. But like another fragrant slab of recent pork, the $223 million "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska, Coconut Road leads to somewhere darkly fascinating. It runs straight into Washington's earmark culture of waste, corruption and anticonstitutional deviousness.

Today the road ends at a chain-link fence, beyond which flows the river of traffic on Interstate 75. The earmark that would have built an interchange to connect Coconut Road to I-75 was, like the bridge, smudged with the fingerprints of Alaska's Republican Rep. Don Young, who in 2005 was chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. But this story involves more than one political vulgarian's wretched excesses. It also illustrates how Republicans earned their most recent and coming drubbings.

On July 29, 2005, the House and Senate passed legislation granting Lee County's request for $10 million for "widening and improvements for I-75" to facilitate evacuations during hurricanes. But on Feb. 19, 2005, Young had been in Bonita Springs near Fort Myers, collecting $40,000 in campaign funds. The contributors included developer Daniel Aronoff, a prolific supporter of Republicans and owner of about 4,000 acres along Coconut Road. The value of that land would be enhanced if Coconut Road were connected to I-75 by an interchange that would be adjacent to 1,200 of Aronoff's acres.

When the legislation reached the president on Aug. 10, 2005, the language about widening I-75 had been mysteriously deleted and replaced by "Coconut Rd. interchange I-75/ Lee County." So $10 million was to be spent for a project neither the House nor the Senate voted for, that Lee County did not want, and that someone unknown wrote into the legislation. But the Constitution says: "Every bill ... shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate" before it becomes law.

Young at first said the local congressman, Connie Mack, asked for the change. Mack denied that. In January 2006, Young, who subsequently changed his tune, warned Lee County that it could not spend the $10 million for the widening project it requested. Young says local residents requested the interchange project instead. But many residents, not including the developers who are Young's benefactors, oppose it for environmental and traffic reasons.

There are two mysteries: Who surreptitiously perverted the will of Congress? And why is Congress not angry and eager to identify the culprit? It seems reasonable to suspect that the answer to the first question is: Young or an agent of his. The answer, or answers, to the second question probably is, or are: Because Young is powerful -- and perhaps also because such violations of legislative due process have been committed on behalf of other members.

Fortunately, Senate rules enable an obdurate individual to force the institution to sit up and take notice. One such mechanism is a "hold," by which a senator can halt a bill. Freshman Sen. Tom Coburn is an Oklahoma Republican who happily has not learned the Senate ethic of playing nicely with others. He has put a hold on the bill that corrects technical problems in the 2005 highway bill. On Dec. 18, he announced that he will block that bill -- and its slew of earmarks; that will get members' attention -- if the bill "does not require a full and open investigation of the events leading up to the unauthorized revision of congressionally passed legislation." Coburn demands "a select committee, comprised of members of both the House and Senate," because "secret, improper and unauthorized changes to congressionally passed legislation call into question the integrity of our entire constitutional and legislative process."

Seven weeks have passed and nothing has happened. Young, 74, one of whose former aides pleaded guilty to bribery charges involving the jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff, is the subject of an FBI investigation concerning another matter, and faces strong opposition to a 19th term. Recently two more House Republicans -- the total is now 28 -- announced their retirements, evidence that Republicans do not expect soon to end their minority status that began 17 months after the Coconut Road earmark alteration.

In his State of the Union address, the president vowed to veto any appropriation bill "that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half." Coburn tartly notes that although Congress hardly needs 5,500 earmarks -- half of last year's total -- the president's goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans' current and future minority status.
 
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