2 Congressmen Trail in Georgia in New Districts

Democratic Reps. Charles Hatcher and Ben Jones trailed in early returns Tuesday against strong primary challengers in Georgia’s redrawn congressional districts.

GOP firebrand Newt Gingrich also faced a strong challenge for his House seat from an opponent who ridiculed him for writing bad checks and using a chauffeured limousine. No returns were available in that race 90 minutes after the polls closed.

Gingrich, the House minority whip and Georgia’s only Republican in Congress, was opposed by Herman Clark, a lawyer who served five years in the state Legislature. Gingrich, seeking an eighth term, was running in a redrawn, predominantly white district in Atlanta’s northern suburbs.

Hatcher, seeking a seventh term, was identified as one of the worst abusers of the House bank, with 819 overdrafts. He had the added disadvantage of running as a white incumbent in a new, majority-black district in rural western Georgia.

With 13% of precincts reporting, Lonzy Edwards, an attorney and Baptist minister, led with 3,289 votes, or 41%; Hatcher had 1,712 votes, or 21%, and state Sen. Sanford Bishop was third with 1,472 votes, or 18%. Three others divided the remainder. Lonzy and Bishop are black, as are two of the other candidates.

In Hatcher’s race, as in many others on the crowded Georgia ballot, an Aug. 11 runoff seemed a strong possibility. Under state law, candidates need a majority of the vote to avoid a runoff with the second-place finisher.

Jones, a former actor who played Cooter on television’s “The Dukes of Hazzard,” was running second to state Sen. Don Johnson in a five-way race. With 9% of precincts reporting, Johnson had 4,334 votes, or 53%; Jones had 2,774 votes, or 34%, and the three others divided the rest.

Clark was severely out-financed by Gingrich, but he attracted national attention with an ad set to the tune of “Old MacDonald” that made fun of the incumbent for supporting a 1989 congressional pay raise, for using a taxpayer-funded, chauffeured limousine and for writing 22 bad checks against the now-closed House bank.

“Newt Gingrich is part of the system,” Clark said. “There is change in the wind, and you can see it.”

Gingrich apologized in April for the overdrafts, which included a $9,463 check to the Internal Revenue Service.

But the fiercely partisan Gingrich, who filed the ethics complaint that eventually forced Rep. Jim Wright of Texas to resign as House Speaker, nevertheless took credit for forcing Democrats to reveal the full extent of the check scandal.

“I think we’ve been able to convince people I am the leading pro-change incumbent in the country,” he said.