Rep. Lewis Fails to Win GOP Post : Congress: He loses to Texas’ Richard G. Armey, who was elected as chairman of the House Republican Conference.

With freshmen providing the key votes, House Republicans tilted to the right Monday, electing conservative Rep. Richard G. Armey of Texas to a third-ranking leadership post over California Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands, the moderate incumbent.

Several Orange County representatives said that Armey’s narrow, 88-84 victory as chairman of the House Republican Conference signals a likely confrontation between the House Democratic leadership and the minority party.

Armey’s supporters said the key issue was his superior ability to articulate a Republican philosophy while the Democrats control the White House for the first time in 12 years.

“I think this means the economic stands we take will be a lot tougher and less accommodating. We will be a lot more aggressive,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), the only member of the Orange County delegation who openly supported Armey. Others declined to say who they supported.

Lewis, 58, has a reputation as a pragmatist able to compromise with the majority Democrats, although he has taken a tough partisan line at times in chairing the Republican Conference, the organization of all GOP members of the House.

In a statement issued after his defeat, Lewis blamed some of his fellow California Republicans.

“In a time of important decisions relating to the economic and political future of our states, Texans stick together and Californians do not,” Lewis said. “Texas’ solid backing (for Armey) and a divided California delegation was the difference in this race.”

California Republicans Duncan Hunter of Coronado and Dana Rohrabacher of Huntington Beach openly campaigned for Armey while Rep. Robert K. Dornan of Garden Grove also hinted that he cast a ballot for the Texas challenger.

“Let’s just say I’m a change-oriented guy,” said Dornan, who added that Lewis may have fallen victim to term-limit fever. “It wasn’t a rejection of Jerry Lewis, it was an affirmation of (President-elect Bill) Clinton’s favorite word: change. We have to be ready to fight as conservatives.”

Lewis, who is usually talkative with reporters, remained out of sight and did not return calls after the vote. Some Republican sources said that he lost his power base two years ago when he was bumped off the Republican Committee on Committees, which decides party assignments to House committees.

Lewis’ departure apparently will mean that the only moderate left in the House GOP hierarchy will be Minority Leader Robert H. Michel of Illinois, who has held his post since 1981.

There were a variety of explanations for the Armey victory. One freshman, who asked not to be named, said that he voted for the Texan because he favored term limits for members of Congress while Lewis opposed term limits in California.

“I would say that a majority of the freshman votes probably went for Armey,” said Rep.-elect Edward R. Royce of Fullerton, who will begin his first term in Congress in January.

Rep. Robert S. Walker of Pennsylvania, an Armey backer and one of two deputies to GOP Whip Newt Gingrich of Georgia, said: “There was a mood change in Congress when we became the chief opposition center in the country. . . . With a Republican in the White House, it was OK to have a conference chairman who made sure the paper got moved on time, but now we need someone who is more concerned about the content of the paper.”

Armey, once known as a “budget commando” who tried constantly to reduce spending and slept in his office to save money, is an advocate of the supply-side economics embraced during President Ronald Reagan’s tenure. Armey said confrontation is a “tool” he favors using when necessary, although he prefers to cooperate with the incoming Clinton Administration.

A former economics professor at North Texas State University, the 52-year-old Armey opposed family leave legislation as “yuppie welfare” and proposed selling Amtrak’s Northeast corridor rail service to private interests.

His voting record generally rates a perfect score from the American Conservative Union and a zero from the AFL-CIO or Americans for Democratic Action.

He claimed that “a significant majority” of the 47 GOP newcomers voted for him, and other congressional sources said that Armey had the votes of 36 freshmen who wanted to change the House Republican high command.

But veteran Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois discounted the importance of the outcome, saying that chairing the conference primarily is an administrative job rather than a policy-making task.

“It was a tribute to the mystic power of the word ‘change’ this year,” Hyde said. “I don’t think there’s any sea change.”

Michel and Gingrich were reelected to their posts without opposition.

Two other GOP conservatives--Rep. Bill McCollum of Florida and Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas--are expected to win intraparty contests over more moderate opponents today for lower-ranking leadership jobs in another sign of movement to the right by House Republicans.

Democrats, meanwhile, reelected their entire House leadership, from Speaker Thomas S. Foley of Washington to three deputy whips. All were unopposed. In a gesture to the growing number of Latinos in Congress, Foley also named a fourth deputy whip, Rep. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, a leader in the Hispanic Caucus.

Times staff writer Robert W. Stewart contributed to this story.