Majority of House Members Expected to Win Reelection : Politics: Despite voters’ anti-incumbent mood, few sitting lawmakers will be turned out, experts say. Even those facing criminal indictment.

Call them the Indicted but Still Favored Few.

Despite the antipathy toward Congress nationwide, voters in Illinois, California and Pennsylvania may well reelect three lawmakers whose ultimate fates will hang on yet another verdict. Reps. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.), Walter R. Tucker III (D-Compton) and Joseph M. McDade (R-Pa.) have the unsavory distinction of being on next week’s ballot while also being under indictment.

A fourth legislator under indictment, Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), was also considered a shoo-in for reelection before a final Republican push suggested that his race may be tougher than expected.

The nature of the four congressmen’s alleged crimes makes their electoral viability even more striking: Reynolds is charged with 20 counts of sexual assault, child pornography, aggravated sexual abuse of a child and obstruction of justice. Tucker was indicted on 10 counts of extortion and income tax evasion and McDade on five counts of racketeering, conspiracy and accepting illegal gratuities. Rostenkowski, whose name has become nearly synonymous with the House Post Office scandal, faces trial on 17 counts of embezzlement, fraud and witness-tampering.

The political resilience of this bipartisan quartet illustrates a little-noticed phenomenon of this campaign: Despite all the turnover expected in Congress, most incumbents seeking reelection to the House are likely to win.

A total of 44 face no major party opposition. Another 118 have opponents who had spent less than $25,000 by mid-October in largely token campaigns. And all seven Louisiana lawmakers seeking reelection are already assured return trips to Capitol Hill because they received more than 50% of the vote in the state’s open primary, sparing them a general-election race.

According to the parties’ congressional campaign committees, the maximum number of battlegrounds this fall is only 130 to 150 seats--or about one-third of the House. This includes 28 districts held by Democrats and 17 by Republicans with no incumbent running. The other potentially competitive races involve 75 Democrats and 13 to 30 Republicans.

This means that even in such a volatile year--when voters are professed to be in a mood to “throw the bums out”--two-thirds of sitting House members appear to be coasting to victory.

The forces that have combined to keep lawmakers coming back to Washington are still very much at work, political professionals say. In addition to lopsided voting registration, these include significant incumbent fund-raising advantages; other perks of incumbency, such as staff, district offices and publicly funded mail and the recognition, personal popularity and political expertise gained during years in public life.

Moreover, voters themselves have expressed a distinct ambivalence in recent years: they generally are fed up with Congress as an institution but satisfied with their own representative. A recent survey by The Los Angeles Times Poll found that 51% of respondents said their member of Congress deserved to be reelected while 36% said their lawmaker did not.

If there was ever evidence that some lawmakers simply defy opposition, it may be the four indicated incumbents on whom voters will pass judgment next Tuesday. All four have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial.

Such circumstances are hardly unique in the annals of American history. More than 90 members of Congress have been indicted and many sought reelection with charges pending. In nearly a third of such cases, the charges were dropped or the lawmakers were acquitted.

Rostenkowski, who is seeking a 19th term, is charged with diverting $636,600 in federal funds and $56,267 in campaign funds for personal use. He has strongly asserted that he is innocent. At the same time, he has reimbursed the government for $82,000 in purchases.

After going all-out to survive a spirited primary challenge in his Democratic district, Rostenkowski was thought to be home free. He faces a little-known and underfunded Republican opponent.

Michael Flanagan, 31, a lawyer and political novice, had spent only $44,887 as of Oct. 19. But after a Republican National Committee poll showed him running surprisingly ahead, the committee pumped about $58,000 into the challenger’s campaign this week, most of it for a last-minute television ad.

“This race, very minimally, is very winnable,” a Flanagan spokesman said Friday.

Rostenkowski is making a pitch to voters that his reelection will “give me a chance to clear my name.” In a $60,000 mailing that was to start arriving at constituents’ homes Thursday, he wrote about “a cloud hanging over me, a cloud I’m certain will disappear once I get my day in court.”

Voters may buy his argument but many do so grudgingly. “So what are we gonna get if we replace old guys like Rosty?” asked Doris Kugler, a retired hospital bookkeeper in Chicago. “Just younger versions of them, that’s all.”

Reynolds, 42, a Rhodes scholar and former professor who is accused of having sex with a 16-year-old girl two years ago, does not even face an opponent on the ballot. Carl Bibbs, a state economic development officer, is running as a write-in candidate in the Democrat-dominated district.

Reynolds, who is black, represents the mostly African American, economically distressed South Side of Chicago and southern suburbs that run the gamut from working class to affluent. He ousted divisive Democratic Rep. Gus Savage in the 1992 primary.

Ida Phillips, a retired school principal who lives in suburban Markham, Ill., says she plans to vote for Reynolds. She says she believes he is guilty but she is just as disgusted with the prosecutor and the alleged victim. The state’s attorney who brought the indictment is a Republican, and the GOP “wants that job,” she said. She said that she also believes Reynolds’ claim that his accuser and her mother tried to extort money from him.

Tucker, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in September for accepting $30,000 in bribes as mayor of Compton, also has no GOP opponent. In a district where 77% of registered voters are Democrats, the first-term lawmaker’s sole challenger is Libertarian Guy Wilson.

Tucker is black. Much of his district is low-income and heavily Latino and African American. He charged that the government’s prosecution of him was racially motivated.

Tucker, who easily defeated a June primary opponent despite rumors that he was under investigation, is well known in Compton, the heart of the 37th District. His father was a school board member, councilman and mayor.

McDade is seeking a 17th term despite his 1992 indictment for accepting $100,000 in bribes and illegal gratuities--Lear jet trips to Florida, expense-paid vacations at resorts and sham “scholarships” for his son--from defense contractors and lobbyists. He has responded that the prosecutor was politically motivated, that he was unaware of any illegal contributions and that he reimbursed donors for any questionable expenditures.

The ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee, McDade has ingratiated himself with his economically embattled constituents by steering so much federal largess to his northeastern Pennsylvania district that one pundit dubbed it “McDadeland.” This includes the Steamtown National Historical site, a $66-million park and steam railroad museum that has been derided as a prime example of pork-barrel spending.

Daniel J. Schreffler, McDade’s Democratic opponent, had spent only $8,577 as of Oct. 19. “The only thing people care about there is that (McDade’s) bringing home the bacon,” said a Democratic operative familiar with the race.

Researcher Murielle E. Gamache in Washington and Times staff writers Judy Pasternak and Stephen Braun in Chicago contributed to this story.