Texas House Fights May Go Extra Rounds : Court-ordered redistricting has potential to keep some contests up in the air until December. Outcome may decide battle for control of Capitol Hill.

For a while, the political talk surrounding the Texas congressional elections was about race.

Now, as election day nears, the focus of political concern and debate has shifted. Race is passe. Partisan politics is au courant.

That’s because the balance of political power in Congress may be left swinging in the Texas wind. The rest of the country will pick its House representatives on Nov. 5. But in some parts of Texas, the final results may not be in until December.

“Texas prides itself on being a unique state,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat seeking to return to Washington. “The voters I come in contact with would have preferred we didn’t be so unique this year.”

The unusual situation began with a Supreme Court decision in June to strike down three minority districts--the 30th in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and the 18th and 29th in and around Houston--that the justices said had been drawn impermissibly along racial lines.

In redrawing those districts, lower-court judges changed 10 other neighboring ones. Having drawn new lines, the judges also threw out the March 12 primary and April 9 runoff elections for the 13 affected districts. To deal with the resulting confusion, state election officials decided that the Nov. 5 election would be held as an open primary--anyone who had been on the original primary ballots would be allowed to run again. In any race where no candidate wins 50% of the votes, a special runoff will be held on Dec. 10.

If the results of congressional races in the nation’s other 422 districts leave the House closely divided, the nation may not know which party ends up in control of Congress until Texas finishes voting.

Ironically, given that it was the minority districts that were the original point of controversy, all three of the incumbents in those districts are expected to win reelection.

Lee, an African American representing the 18th District, and Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, another African American woman in the 30th District, are expected to win easily. So too is Rep. Gene Green, a liberal Anglo Democrat representing the heavily Latino 29th District.

Instead of affecting representation for minority groups, the biggest impact of the court rulings is now on mostly white districts that border the primarily minority districts.

One of the incumbents most heavily affected has been Rep. Martin Frost, who heads the Democrats’ national congressional campaign effort. He may well be forced into a runoff because of challenges not only from a Republican, Ed Harrison, but also by a fellow Democrat, Marion Jacob, and by Dale Mouton, an independent.

Another congressman now in jeopardy is Rep. Ken Bentsen, a first-term Democrat who represents the Houston-area 25th District. Bentsen, the nephew of Lloyd Bentsen, the state’s former senator and President Clinton’s former Treasury secretary, easily won his party’s nomination last March and was preparing to cruise comfortably back to Washington.

Instead, “it’s possible I could have a runoff,” he said as he sped from one recent campaign event to another. “And that runoff could very well impact who controls the House. From a political-science standpoint, all this would be fascinating. But from my personal standpoint, I don’t want to be a live guinea pig for this.”

The changes may well have saved one Republican, freshman Steve Stockman, who represents a Gulf Coast district and was heavily targeted by Democrats. After being redrawn, his district is more heavily Republican than it was before.

In general, the runoff prospect is cheering Republicans. “Out of 13 districts, about eight, maybe nine will go to a runoff,” predicted Ron Meinke, a Republican running against Ken Bentsen. “When that happens, a Republican will win those districts.”

The reasoning, with which many Democrats agree, is that a December runoff is apt to be a low-turnout affair, one in which the Republicans would have the advantage of more ardent supporters in the state and more money.

Yet, Bentsen said, a runoff that ends up attracting national media and public scrutiny might be exciting. “It would give you a hell of a forum to discuss national issues,” he said.