Some Republicans want their old jobs back

A handful of the most-watched congressional races in Tuesday’s midterm election have an element of grudge matches — former Republican lawmakers fighting to get their old jobs back.

For all the emphasis that conservative and “tea party” advocates have put on reshaping Washington, five GOP former House members and one GOP former senator are again seeking office.

The comeback campaigns call into question the promises candidates made while running for office. Charlie Bass in New Hampshire and Steve Chabot in Ohio, for instance, both voted for term limits in 1995 when they were elected as part of that season’s Republican takeover of Congress. Now they are seeking to return to Washington.

And the efforts of ousted members to get their old jobs back have led to some confusing moments in an electoral cycle when incumbency has become a toxic asset.

Consider the ad wars underway in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, where Democratic Rep. Patrick J. Murphy is labeling his rival “Congressman Mike Fitzpatrick.”

Fitzpatrick has been out of Congress for four years. He lost to Murphy in the antiwar fervor of 2006, when Murphy became the first Iraq war veteran elected to Congress.

Now, some Murphy ads identify him not as the incumbent but as “Patrick Murphy, a soldier for Bucks County.”

In a costly rematch in southern Michigan, Republican Tim Walberg, one of the GOP’s “young gun” recruits, is trying to wrest his seat back from Democrat Mark Schauer, who tossed him out after a single term two years ago.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Republican candidate Steve Pearce’s website introduces him as having been elected to Congress in 2002. But he left Congress after a failed 2008 run for the Senate, replaced by Democratic Rep. Harry Teague.

Andrew Smith, director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, said that in some races voters might greet such candidates as long-lost leaders. In others, “the prodigal son is not welcomed back.”

Republican leadership has let it be known that candidates who win their old jobs back would have their seniority restored. Reelected House members could also return to the committees they once served on.

And those who once promised to be in Washington for only a short time are offering explanations to voters about why they now want to return.

Former Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.) is favored to return to the Senate, which he left in 1999 to honor a term-limit pledge. Now he is running “to change Washington,” his ad says.

Both Bass and Chabot say they still support term limits. “Charlie Bass voted for term limits every opportunity he could in Congress — they didn’t pass,” said Bass campaign spokesman Scott Tranchemontagne. “If he’s presented with a term-limit bill again, he’ll support it again. He’s not going to term-limit himself if nobody else is going to abide by it.”

A spokeswoman for Chabot, who is leading in a rematch against first-term Democratic Rep. Steve Driehaus, makes a similar argument.

House Republicans left term limits out of this year’s “Pledge to America,” which GOP aides say is a governing agenda regardless of what happens on election day.

Philip Blumel of the advocacy organization U.S. Term Limits sees it differently. Republicans, he said, having run on term limits when they won control of Congress in 1994, “didn’t want to participate in the same farce twice.”

lisa.mascaro@tribune.com