House Democrats Lose Member to Republicans

Texas Rep. Ralph M. Hall switched parties Friday night, filing for reelection as a Republican after 23 years as one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress.

“I’ve always said that if being a Democrat hurt my district, I would switch or I would resign,” Hall said in an interview. He said GOP leaders had recently refused to place money for his district in a spending bill and “the only reason I was given was I was a Democrat.”

In an interview in which he said he had filed to run as a Republican, he also said he didn’t agree with “all these guys running against the president.”

Hall’s switch marked the first fallout from a GOP-led drive -- bitterly contested by Democrats -- to remake Texas’ congressional districts more to their liking. Party strategists contend they could gain at least five seats through a mid-decade redistricting, a change that could greatly strengthen their grip on power in the House.

Before Hall’s move, the House had 228 Republicans, 205 Democrats, one Democrat-leaning independent and one vacancy.

Hall’s defection has historic overtones. His district in Texas includes territory once represented in Congress by the late Sam Rayburn, who served as a Democratic speaker for much of the time between 1940 and 1961.

Republican sources said Hall privately relayed word of his intentions to White House officials and senior GOP officials earlier in the day.

Hall, 80, was first elected to the House in 1980.

He has long been among the most conservative Democrats in Congress. Speculation that he might switch parties first surfaced in 1995, when the GOP gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years.

Hall said then he wouldn’t, arguing that it would be better to try to move the Democratic Party toward the middle.