Battle for Control of Congress Is Heating Up

Deep in the shadows of this year’s presidential campaign, Republicans and Democrats across the country are beginning to wage another bruising political battle, one that could determine whether voters give the green light--or a red flag--to the GOP’s brash drive to roll back the size and scope of government.

It is the fight for control of Congress. And while it may be eclipsed by the White House race, it is a contest that could be as important in determining the balance of power in Washington.

Political analysts currently give Democrats little chance of recapturing the total control of Congress they had enjoyed before the 1994 vote. That’s mainly because Republicans have a grip on the Senate that only an electoral earthquake seems likely to loosen.

But with many polls showing increased public skepticism toward much of the GOP legislative agenda--and antipathy toward controversial House Speaker Newt Gingrich--the analysts say they believe that Democrats have a longshot chance of regaining power in the House, the best-fortified redoubt of the Republican revolution.

The 435 House races “will become almost the equivalent of a national referendum on the future direction of the country,” said GOP political consultant Eddie Mahe.

The road map of political risks and opportunities facing each party is already pretty clear.

The GOP has vast potential for gaining seats in the South, where Democratic strength has ebbed for years. The impending retirement of several entrenched Southern Democrats--such as Reps. G. V. “Sonny” Montgomery of Mississippi and Charles Wilson of Texas--leaves analysts wondering not whether the party will lose seats in the region, but how many.

Democrats’ greatest hope for regaining power lies in the backyards of the huge House GOP freshman class, many of whose members won narrowly in districts that previously leaned Democratic.

In the Senate, an unprecedented number of open seats should make for several lively races, but the odds are still heavily against the Democrats. “I would say it’s an absolute impossibility that they get the Senate back,” said Charles E. Cook Jr., an independent political analyst who edits the Cook Political Report. “The best Democrats could hope for is breaking even.”

Democrats would need a net gain of at least four seats in the Senate, which Republicans now control, 53 to 46. The resignation of Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) in October created a vacancy that will be filled in a special election, for which mail-in ballots are due Jan. 30. If Democrats do not win that seat, they would have to pick up five in November to take control.

In the House, which Republicans dominate by 236 to 197, Democrats need a net gain of 20 seats to get the 218 required to hold a House majority (the chamber’s sole independent, Bernard Sanders of Vermont, votes with the Democrats on organizational matters).

In both the Senate and House, Democrats start the year having already lost some ground since the ’94 vote. Seven Democrats--five in the House and two in the Senate--switched parties in 1995, and in December, Republican Tom Campbell won a special election for the San Jose-area seat formerly held by Democrat Norman Y. Mineta.

Of late, however, public opinion has seemed to swing back in the Democrats’ direction. A new poll by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found respondents evenly divided over their voting intentions: Asked which party they would back in congressional elections, 46% said the Republicans and 47% said the Democrats.

“That’s a big improvement for the Democratic Party, which trailed the Republicans by a large margin early in 1995,” said Andrew Kohut, director of the research center. But he added that the Democrats’ gains may have peaked. “I don’t think they are going to gain any more ground until we get resolution of the budget impasse.”

The final tally in the Senate--as well as the House--will depend in part on what happens in the presidential campaign, a dynamic hard to predict at the moment.

The ongoing dispute between President Clinton and GOP leaders over the federal budget also is sure to be a central theme of the congressional campaigns. Democratic candidates will be portraying Republicans as extremists whose balanced-budget plan would decimate Medicare, Medicaid, education and environmental protection. They hope to tar GOP incumbents by linking them to Gingrich. And the Republicans who have taken politically risky votes for scaling back popular government programs may end up with another disadvantage--no balanced-budget agreement to show for it.

The Republicans “are on the record with issues we didn’t have in 1994,” said Rob Engel, political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “They have voted conclusively to cut Medicare at high levels. You’ve got Newt Gingrich, whose negatives are approaching Nixon levels.”

Democrats’ campaign strategy probably won’t change much even in the event--now increasingly unlikely--that Clinton and the GOP lawmakers reach agreement on a budget-balancing plan.

“Whether or not they make a deal, we’ve got them all voting for $270 billion in Medicare cuts,” Engel said. “That stuff will never go away.”

Republicans will portray themselves as in the vanguard of efforts to change a discredited status quo, obstructed only by Clinton and his party. They will stress their national agenda--their “contract with America”--rather than traditional parochial pitches about what they have done for their districts.

“Republicans are staking their seats on their performance on the contract,” said Gary C. Jacobson, a political scientist at UC San Diego. “They are going to be attacked on that ground as well.”

Republicans will try to convince voters that Democrats are distorting the GOP program and argue that Republicans are not trying to “cut” Medicare and other programs, just slow their rate of growth.

“Once voters have had the ability to hear about it--and that’s what a campaign is for--they are going to recognize that the 104th Congress has done a great deal,” said Craig Veith, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Democrats see some of their best opportunities to gain seats among the 73 Republicans elected for the first time in 1994--many of whom were unlikely victors, carried into office by the broader political currents that swept the GOP to power.

One statistic in particular has caught the attention of political analysts: According to the nonpartisan Congressional Quarterly, 27 House Republican freshmen won with less than 55% of the vote in districts that supported Clinton for president in 1992.

Democrats draw hope from political history, which shows that whatever party wins big in one congressional election tends to lose ground in the next. But many political analysts say the 1994 GOP landslide may have more staying power. Jacobson said many of the Republican victories were not flukes, but overdue victories in districts that have been leaning Republican for years.

Compounding Democrats’ difficulties is the stampede of House members who have announced their retirement. Two-thirds of the retirees are Democrats, and many of them represent districts Democrats will have to fight to retain. Of the 23 seats being vacated by Democrats, about three-quarters are considered vulnerable to GOP takeover by analysts at the Cook Political Report. Of the 11 seats being vacated by Republicans, only about one-third are considered vulnerable, Cook said.

What’s more, Democrats head into the campaign without the powerful advantage they enjoyed for the 40 years they controlled the House: the edge in fund-raising and candidate recruitment that goes to the party in power.

“Whether we are going to have the candidates and the money to really prosecute the advantage we have [on issues] is still an open question,” one top Democratic strategist conceded privately.

Democrats are at an even more serious disadvantage in the Senate because of the wave of retirements. Eight of the 13 retiring senators are Democrats--many from states that will be hard for the party to hold. The four open Southern seats being given up by Democrats--in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia and Louisiana--are particularly problematic: Since 1978, every retiring Senate Democrat in the South but one has been succeeded by a Republican.

Still, Democrats plan spirited battles against GOP incumbents elsewhere in the South, such as Virginia and the Carolinas.

Although Democrats seem unlikely to win control of the Senate, Republicans will have a hard time realizing their own hope of increasing their numbers from 53 to 60. That is an important benchmark because it takes 60 votes to block a filibuster--one of the Democrats’ most powerful tools for blocking GOP initiatives.

Stuart Rothenberg, an independent political analyst, predicts that as of now, Republicans will make a net gain of only two or three seats.

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Senate Elections to Watch

Of the 33 senators up for re-election this year, 13 have decided to bow out--a record retirement rate that assures an unusually high turnover. Following are eight races to be among the most interesting.

DEMOCRATIC SEATS

Alabama: With Howell Heflin retiring, his party may have a hard time holding on to this seat. As in the rest of the South, support for Democrats has been eroding for years here.

Georgia: Shaken by the retirement of political titan Sam Nunn, Democrats are at risk of losing yet another Southern seat. Democrats pin their hopes on Max Cleland, former head of the federal Veterans Administration.

Minnesota: Paul Wellstone, a feisty liberal who won an upset victory in 1990, could face a tough rematch against the Republican he beat, Rudy Boschwitz.

Massachusetts: Incumbent John Kerry had smooth sailing to reelection until GOP Gov. William Weld threw his hat in the ring, likely making this the year’s most expensive contest.

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REPUBLICAN SEATS

South Carolina: Strom Thurmond, after more than four decades in the Senate, is a legendary figure on Capitol Hill. But at 93, Thurmond will see his age become an issue.

Oregon: The retirement of 30-year incumbent Mark O. Hatfield gives Democrats their best opportunity to pick up an open seat. A preview of the state’s political mood comes Jan. 30, when voters fill the Senate vacancy left by Republican Bob Packwood’s resignation.

South Dakota: Larry Pressler is one of Democrats’ top incumbent targets. Democratic foe Rep. Tim Johnson, as South Dakota’s only House member, shares the advanatge of a statewide political base.

Virginia: John W. Warner, weakened by an intraparty feud that pits him against conservatives angry at his refusal to back Oliver L. North in the state’s 1994 Senate race, has to fight just to get renominated. The leading Democratic candidate shares the same last name with the incumbent--Mark Warner.

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GOP Controls, 53-46

Control of the Senate has flip-flopped between the two party’s over the last 20 years.

* Figures don’t always add up to 100 because of vacancies.

Source: Congressional Quarterly

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House Elections to Watch

In the wake of the GOP’s stunning takeover of the House in the 1994 vote, Democratic hopes for regaining control rest largely on defeating a large number of the 73 Republican freshmen. The following is a list of 20 seats, excluding districts in California, where the contest between the two parties is considered a toss up by analysts at the Cook Political Report, an independent publication in Washington:

The Close Races

Democratic seats

Alabama 5th district: Ben Cramer

Florida 2nd: OPEN SEAT (Pete Peterson retiring)

Mississippi 3rd: OPEN SEAT (G.V. “Sonny” Montgomery retiring)

Montana, at large: OPEN SEAT (Pat Williams retiring)

North Carolina 7th: Charlie Rose

Oregon, 1st: Elizabeth Furse

South Dakota at large: OPEN SEAT (Tim Johnson running for Senate)

Tennessee 6th: Bart Gordon

Texas 5th: OPEN SEAT (John Bryant running for Senate)

Texas 12th: OPEN SEAT (Pete Geren retiring)

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Republican seats

Arkansas 4th District: Jay Dickey

Illinois 5th: Michael Patrick Flanagan

Louisiana 7th: OPEN SEAT (Jimmy Hayes retiring)

Michigan 8th: Dick Chrysler

Nebraska 2nd: Jon Christensen

Ohio 10th: Martin R. Hoke

Oklahoma 2nd: Tom Coburn

Texas 9th: Steve Stockman

Utah 2nd: Enid Greene Waldholtz

Wisconsin 3rd: OPEN SEAT (Steve Gunderson retiring)

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California Spotlight

California could be the site of several races that determine the overall national trend.

Democratic seats

* Rep. Vic Fazio (3rd district) Redistricting has made every recent race in this Sacramento-area district an adventure for the No. 3 Democrat on the House leadership ladder, and voters may blame him for the closing of mammoth McClellen Air Force Base.

* Open seat of Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (24th district) Beilenson is retiring after 20 years in office, boosting the chances in this San Fernando Valley district of GOP’s Rich Sybert, who nearly beat him last time.

* Rep. Jane Harman (36th district) Harman, first elected in this South Bay district in 1992, was a loser on Election Day ’94 but pulled out a slim victory based on her margin among absentee votes. A daunting district for a Democrat.

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Republican seats

* Rep. Frank Riggs (1st district) Voters in this far Northern California district can’t make up its mind. They sent a Democrat to Washington in 1988, Riggs in 1990, then a Democrat in 1992, then back to Riggs in ’94.

* Rep. Andrea Seastrand (22nd district) In 1994, Seastrand won this open House seat representing the central coast by 2,000 votes--one of the nation’s closest contests. Democrats hope her strong positions opposing abortion and gay rights have rankled moderates.

* Rep. Brian Bilbray (49th district) Bilbray edged his predecessor, Democrat Lynn Schenk in 1994; she flirted with a rematch but decided to sit this one out. Numerous swing voters in this San Diego district make it unpredictable.

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GOP Controls, 236-197

From a high point in 1964, Democratic control of the House had never been seriously threatened until it collapsed in 1994.

* Independents not shown; currently one is serving. Also, California 37th congressional district seat is vacant.

Source: Congressional Quarterly