Bang for the Buck

Republicans Get More for Their Money in Claiming
66 Percent Share of Congressional Delegation

By MIKE HAILEY

GOP leaders justified their historic redistricting effort last year on the argument that the number of seats held by Texas Republicans in Congress did not fairly reflect the share of the votes they'd been getting in races across the state. That will still be the case when the new Congress is sworn in early next year. Only this time it will be the Democrats turn to howl.

An analysis of unofficial election returns shows that Republicans received less than 59 percent of the total votes cast in congressional races in Texas last week in an election that gave the Grand Old Party almost 66 percent of the seats in the state's delegation to the U.S. House. Texas Republicans, who will have a 21-11 advantage over Democrats in the congressional delegation, would have two or three seats less if the number they ended up winning this week matched their share of total votes cast for U.S. House candidates from Texas.

But Republicans aren't going to offer to give back any of the seats they picked up in Texas simply because their new share of the state's 32 congressional seats is higher than their portion of total votes cast. There will be no guilt or remorse as GOP members show the other side how it felt when they were the victims of gerrymandering instead of the party in charge.

Republicans would have needed to win an additional 485,000 votes to have their totals at the polls reflect the number of seats they will hold in the Texas delegation when the new Congress convenes in 2005. But the GOP still had more than enough votes than they needed to eliminate four Democrats who despite 68 years of experience and more than $9 million between them had little chance of winning re-election in districts in which they received between 38 percent and 44 percent of the vote. The Texas Four spent $1.4 million more combined than the Republicans who beat them in races that weren't that close in the end. Democrats had to settle for 42 percent of the total votes cast in Texas congressional contests in order to represent only 34 percent of the seats in the state's delegation to the U.S. House next year.

The Republicans' 58-plus percent-share of congressional votes this year is more in line with the percentage of Texas House seats that the GOP will hold if the results from Tuesday's voting hold up. The GOP will have an 87-63 advantage in state House seats if the outcome of the vote isn't altered by Monday's count of provisional and overseas ballots and subsequent possible recounts in two or three close races. Republican candidates in Texas captured the same percentage of congressional votes as the GOP's nominees won on average in statewide races two years ago. The GOP controls 61 percent of Texas Senate seats with a 19-12 advantage over Democrats there.

The difference between the number of votes for Republicans on the ballot for Congress and the number of seats they will hold would be even more out of kilter if U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco wouldn't have beaten State Rep. Arlene Wohlgemuth of Burleson in the Democrats' lone win in a targeted U.S. House race in Texas. A Wohlgemuth victory would have given the GOP a 69 percent share of the state's delegation to Congress. Edwards prevented that while receiving about 125,000 votes - the most cast for any Democratic contender for the U.S. House in Texas this year. But the other four targeted Democrats found votes harder to come by in districts that barely resembled those that they'd represented for years as members of the delegation's majority party.

Rhett Smith, a relatively unknown candidate who'd gone virtually unnoticed in a race against U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of San Antonio, received more votes than any other Texas Democrat running for Congress except Edwards. A former Texas Department of Human Services auditor whose current job is private security guard, Smith the Democrat won almost 121,000 votes, or 36 percent, in losing to the veteran incumbent with the same last name. In contrast, Democratic U.S. Rep. Martin Frost of Dallas - one of the most influential Democrats in the House for a significant portion of a 26-year career - received less than 89,000 votes in losing to U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions with only 44 percent of the vote in a district in which Frost chose to run after his old district was destroyed during redistricting. The former leader of the House Democratic Caucus and the DCCC had high hopes of turning out a substantial number of Hispanic and African-American voters. But it appears that the minority turnout that Frost had envisioned failed to materialize at the level he needed. Frost as a result ended up with fewer votes than Democratic contenders such as John Martinez, Lico Reyes, Richard Morrison and Smith, who were all essentially viewed as minimal or token opposition with no chances whatsoever of winning. Congressman Smith finished with more votes than Sessions and Frost combined. Sessions received fewer votes than any other Republican candidates who won a contested congressional race in Texas this week but still did what he needed to beat Frost with 54 percent of the vote.

President George W. Bush in two White House races wasn't able to run up the score in his home state as well as DeLay and the Republicans did on the new congressional map. Bush increased his share of the Texas vote from 59 percent four years ago to more than 61 percent last week. Despite winning 700,000 more Texas votes than he managed in his initial White House race four years ago, Bush would still have needed an additional 360,000 votes to win a percentage of the total equivalent to the Republicans' share of seats in the new congressional delegation. With almost two out of every three U.S. House allotted to Texas, the GOP's new share of the Texas delegation eclipses the percentage of votes that U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison won in 2000 when 65 percent of the voters backed her re-election over an opponent who Democrats had tried but failed to chase out of their primary that year. Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn captured 64 percent of the statewide vote in her re-election bid two years ago. Bush's 68 percent victory in the 1998 gubernatorial race is the only performance by a contested statewide Republican candidate in modern times that equals or betters the Republicans' electoral debut on the new congressional map this year. Republicans in the top six statewide races on the ballot that year won 57 percent of the vote.

Democrats will probably find sympathetic ears in short supply if they feel that they've been shortchanged. Democrats began the year with 17 congressional seats - or 53 percent of the state's delegation - despite the fact that they'd received only 42 percent of the vote in statewide races two years ago. Republicans evened it up after U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall switched parties and U.S. Rep. Jim Turner opted not to seek re-election after his district was carved up in redistricting. Now the tables have turned as the GOP celebrates a victory achieved with a page from the enemy's old playbook.

Mike Hailey's column appears regularly in Capitol Inside