House Rejects Special Election to Settle Indiana Race : Angry Republicans Plan Walkout to Protest the Expected Seating of Democrat McCloskey

The Democratic-controlled House voted down a Republican proposal Tuesday to call a special election in Indiana’s 8th Congressional District, where a special House task force has declared the Democratic candidate the winner of last November’s cliffhanger election by four votes.

Angry Republicans promptly planned a walkout today, when the House is scheduled to end the indecision over the Indiana district by voting to seat Democrat Frank McCloskey. Republicans had planned to force the House to remain in session all night Tuesday for the second time in two weeks in protest, but House Democrats forced an adjournment resolution through the chamber on a party-line vote.

Adjournment followed a 229-200 vote to reject the special election, with 19 Democrats joining every Republican in the chamber.

McIntyre by 34

Richard D. McIntyre, the Republican candidate in the race, was declared the winner by 34 votes on Election Day and by 418 votes after a state-ordered recount.

But House Democrats argued that 4,800 voters had lost their vote when their ballots were declared invalid under the state’s strict election laws. The House subsequently ordered the General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan congressional auditing agency, to conduct a recount.

That recount, conducted according to rules spelled out in advance by a task force of two Democratic House members and one Republican, showed McCloskey the winner by four votes.

After Tuesday’s Democratic victory, a weary McCloskey said he was “very happy,” though for several days he felt “down and depressed . . . a sense of tragedy about the venom in the process.”

Counted Absentee Ballots

The House task force, chaired by California Rep. Leon E. Panetta (D-Carmel Valley), voted to count some absentee ballots that were invalid under Indiana election law but not to count others that Panetta argued had been handled differently by Indiana election officials. Republicans said the task force simply stopped counting when the Democratic candidate was ahead.

The task force found that 52 absentee ballots that lacked notarization, and were thus invalid under Indiana law, had been forwarded by county clerks to precinct officials and counted there--but that there was no way to identify and “uncount” these ballots.

In addition, the task force found 10 unnotarized absentee ballots that had been forwarded to precincts but not opened or counted, and it voted 2 to 1 to count these 10 ballots.

Later, the task force voted 2 to 1 not to count 32 unnotarized absentee ballots that had never been forwarded to the precincts. Panetta maintained that the 32 ballots represented a “second class” of ballots that were not as secure as those that had been forwarded.

Two Hours of Debate

During the two hours of debate preceding Tuesday’s vote, Assistant House Republican leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) echoed the Republican point of view that McCloskey’s margin of victory was too small to ensure confidence in the validity of the recount. He said the election was a “hung jury” and called for a “retrial.”

Republican Rep. Guy Vander Jagt of Michigan called it a “sorry spectacle” in which the House “superimposed its will on the people of the 8th District.”

Panetta, by contrast, said the task force recount was “fair” and the result “credible.” He reminded members that Democratic leaders had pledged to seat the winner, whether McCloskey or McIntyre.

Standing Ovation

When Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Tex.) called Panetta “as honorable a person as sits in this chamber,” all Democrats and about 10 Republicans gave Panetta a standing ovation.

Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli of Kentucky, one of 19 Democrats breaking ranks to vote for a special election, said: “The race does appear to be tainted; it does appear to have a cloud hanging over it.”

The dispute has embittered both Democrats and Republicans. Legislative business has ground to a halt on several occasions, threatening the Republicans’ legislative agenda. Wright said the dispute was the most vicious he had experienced.

Several speakers criticized the level of invective and expressed a hope that such personal partisan bickering would not “poison the well” for the remainder of the legislative session.