Gallegly Has a Change of Heart

Rep. Elton Gallegly, who announced last week that he would not run for reelection, bowed to pressure from fellow Republicans, including President Bush, and announced Wednesday that he had changed his mind.

The 10-term congressman from Simi Valley also said the undisclosed health concern that had prompted his sudden withdrawal had been resolved, but that this will be his last race.

Gallegly, 62, had dropped out on the last day for filing, leaving the Republican Party no time to line up potential successors.

With midterm elections in November, party leaders were anxious about keeping the seat safely in Republican hands, Gallegly said. He said that concern went all the way to the president, who sent word urging him to get back into the race.

“If the president asks you, you don’t take that lightly,” he said.

House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove also made personal appeals, Gallegly said in a brief interview following a Washington, D.C., news conference in which he announced the decision.

Gallegly’s announcement was a relief to Republican leaders who are bracing for a tough fight to hold onto control of the House and are seeking to discourage the retirement of incumbents. The heavily Republican 24th District includes most of Ventura County and a portion of Santa Barbara County.

In addition to the White House appeals, Gallegly was presented with a letter from his California House Republican colleagues during a meeting Tuesday night in the office of Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas). Dreier said he had expressed his concerns about Gallegly’s retirement directly to Bush earlier Wednesday.

At the hastily called news conference at the Capitol Hill Club near the U.S. Capitol, Gallegly declined to identify the medical issues that led to his earlier decision. But he said that he met with Capitol attending physician John Eisold earlier Wednesday for about an hour and was assured that he was “100% good to go.”

“All of the tests that were run to check issues of concern are negative,” he said. “I made the full commitment today that I will run a vigorous campaign. And I will serve a full term if I am elected.”

But Gallegly said this will be his last House race. He and his wife, Janice, are eager to spend more time with their seven grandchildren, he said.

Potential successors now will have plenty of time to make their interest known and line up party support before his retirement, he said.

“If they want to organize their election committee tomorrow, that’s fine,” Gallegly said. “I have no problem with it and I respect their decision.”

Ventura County Republicans went into a frenzy when Gallegly announced his withdrawal from the race Friday just three hours before the filing deadline. Because he had already filed candidacy papers, Gallegly could not remove his name from the ballot. The only other Republican on the ballot was first-time candidate Michael Tenenbaum, 37, of Westlake Village, whom Gallegly said he had never met.

Party loyalists were infuriated by the possibility of an “accidental congressman” -- one who had openly criticized Gallegly in the days leading up to the filing. Meanwhile, other Republicans who had long coveted the seat, including several already in office, were shut out of the race unless they mounted a write-in campaign.

“The ‘accidental congressman’ may indeed be a good guy -- no one knows,” conservative activist Steve Frank wrote in his blog, capoliticalnews.com. “But the people of this congressional district deserve a full and open election for congress, not an ‘accident.’ ”