The House: A Silver Lining For the Democrats--Sort Of

By Ed Magnuson

They hold down their losses, retaining control

Having won the hearts and minds of the voters, could Ronald Reagan also count on their giving him a House of Representatives with which he might feel comfortable? In the Republicans' year of optimism, many of their leaders had expected a happy answer. "If the tide is strong enough," Michigan's Guy Vander Jagt, chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, had predicted, "we could get 33 seats." A pickup of 30 G.O.R seats, agreed Illinois' Robert Michel, the House Republican leader, was "not unrealistic." The presidential tide turned out to be powerful indeed. Nonetheless, the Republicans apparently gained at most 15 seats. That falls significantly short of the 26 seats they lost to the Democrats in 1982 and leaves the President with a Congress that probably will be resistant, both by party allegiance and by ideology, to many of his legislative programs.

Had some sinister Democratic force clipped Reagan's coattails? Apparently not. In a handful of districts, his top-of-the-ticket strength was enough to tip close races to his party. But a presidential candidate's ability to influence the assorted imponderables of personality and local issues in House districts has always been more theoretical than real. When Dwight Eisenhower overwhelmed Adlai Stevenson by more than 9 million votes in 1956, Republicans actually lost two seats in the House. Richard Nixon's 1972 landslide of 49 states and 60.7% of the votes produced a G.O.P. gain of just twelve House seats, and most of those resulted from redistricting.

The truth is that House incumbents are difficult to dislodge; normally 90% or more of them are reelected. The reason may be that while people generally hold Congress in low esteem, they often admire their own Representative. Norman Ornstein, a professor of government at Washington's Catholic University, notes that even in a year like this, when voters are pleased with the President, "they don't have the impulse to throw the bums out. They tend to re-elect the Government." In that sense, this year's mood of satisfaction paradoxically helped many Democratic incumbents as well as Republican legislators.

While all 435 House seats were at stake, Republicans failed to field a challenger in 45 dominantly Democratic districts. In addition, six Louisiana Democrats were elected in primaries where they had no opposition. Democrats, on the other hand, declined to contest only 15 districts. There were 27 vacated seats to be filled this year (the smallest number in nearly 20 years); 13 of them had been held by Democrats, 14 by Republicans. Overall, the situation worked against the chances of any dramatic shift in the makeup of the lower chamber.

Although the Republican gains were numerically modest, they were far from insignificant. No Democratic head of a House committee was defeated, but some who had been growing in influence or showing promise were rejected on Tuesday. One of the biggest upsets was staged by a woman, Republican Helen Bentley, 60, who narrowly defeated Maryland Democrat Clarence Long, 75. Long, who had served in the House since 1963 and chaired an Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations, was a sharp critic of Reagan's Central America policies. Bentley, a former chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, won mainly on a local issue: she claimed that Long had cost the area thousands of jobs by opposing the dredging of Baltimore harbor. Long had argued that the project would involve the disposal of wastes in an environmentally unsound manner.

In New Jersey, Vice President George Bush made campaign appearances that helped unseat Democrat Joseph Minish, 68, a liberal who had served 22 years in the House. Still, redistricting probably had more to do with winning the seat for Republican Dean Gallo, 48, minority leader of the New Jersey assembly. There was an unexpected Republican victory in Connecticut, where State Senator John Rowland, 27, knocked off Democrat William Ratchford, 50, a three-term incumbent. Reagan had appeared in the state to plug Rowland, who warmly embraced his policies. "We came out of nowhere," acknowledged a Rowland aide, giving Reagan all the credit.

In Georgia, Elliott Levitas, 53, who had held the Atlanta area's seat through five elections, lost to Republican Patrick Lynn Swindall, 33, an Atlanta lawyer and businessman. A Rhodes scholar and a liberal on civil rights, Levitas had been a leading critic of Anne Gorsuch Burford's leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency. He and North Carolina Democrat Ike Andrews both succumbed to the Reagan tide in their states. In 1982, despite a widely publicized drunken-driving charge, Andrews, 59, defeated William Cobey, 45, a former athletic director at the University of North Carolina. Cobey, who had distanced himself from Jesse Helms, this time won the rematch.

A Democratic seat in Iowa had opened when Congressman Tom Harkin made his successful run for a Senate seat. The Republicans were able to seize it as Jim Ross Lightfoot, 46, a conservative former radio broadcaster, defeated Democrat Jerry Fitzgerald, 43, a former state representative. Farm issues dominated the campaign in the rural area of cattle ranchers and wheat and corn growers. Reagan had visited the district to help Lightfoot.

One powerful Democrat had a close call. Oklahoma's James Jones, 45, chairs the House Budget Committee and has vigorously fought Reagan's hugely unbalanced budgets, offering alternatives of his own. Opposed by Frank Keating, 40, a former FBI agent and U.S. Attorney, Jones told his supporters about midnight that "I smell victory in the air." Still, he did not claim it, and Keating did not concede. But it appeared that Jones had survived.

A record total of 65 women had filed for House seats, 20 of them as incumbents. The general trend of voters to stick with their district legislators had no gender gap; all 20 women were reelected. But few of the challengers were successful. Perhaps the most prominent loser was Elise du Pont, 48, wife of Delaware's Republican Governor, Pierre S. du Pont IV. Her campaign suffered when she came across as rude and whiny in a debate with Incumbent Democrat Thomas Carper, 37. A fiscal conservative, Carper used his folksy manner and personal grass-roots approach to win a second term. "In Delaware," said Carper, who was heavily outspent by his wealthy opponent, "we win elections the old-fashioned way. We earn them, we don't buy them."

In Arkansas, Republican Judy Petty, 41, a state representative and Sunday-school teacher, was outgunned by a tough-talking sheriff, Democrat Tommy Robinson, ,42, in a seat that had been vacated by a Republican. A New Hampshire seat that had been held by a Democrat went Republican when Dudley Dudley, 48, a liberal long active in community causes, lost to Robert C. Smith, 43, a schoolteacher and real estate agent who is so conservative that he opposes any U.S. trade with Communist countries.

The Reagan surge did little to unseat blacks and Hispanics, who are overwhelmingly Democratic. There were 33 blacks and eight Hispanics on the House ballots, 27 of them incumbents. Although one black had been defeated in an Indiana primary, reducing their membership in the House to 20, blacks had hoped to lift the total back to 21 with a victory by Democrat Robert Clark, 55, in Mississippi. As in 1982, however, Clark lost to Webb Franklin, 42, a former circuit-court judge. This was despite a redistricting that placed blacks in the majority. The number of Hispanics in the House remained at eight.

Three incumbents involved in scandals had seemed vulnerable, but at least one of them was forgiven by his constituents. Idaho Republican George Hansen, 54, had been convicted of filing false financial disclosure reports, and is appealing his five to 15-month prison sentence. His district's predominantly Republican voters had difficulty deciding whether they preferred a felon to a Democrat. Richard Stallings, 44, a college history professor, treated Hansen's crime obliquely in his campaign. "Some claim to be fiscal conservatives but their own lives do not attest to that," he said. "I stay out of debt and pay the bills when they come due." By dawn on Wednesday, Stallings led by a mere 67 votes.

Massachusetts Democrat Gerry Studds, 47, was censured by the House for a homosexual affair with a teen-age House page. Instead of ducking the problem, Studds turned it into a gay-rights issue. Even though his district, which includes Cape Cod and several fishing ports, is heavily Republican, Studds defeated Lewis Crampton, 45, a moderate who distanced himself from Reagan. Illinois Republican Daniel Crane, 48, who was censured for being ultimate with a 17-year-old female page, could not withstand the challenge of Democratic State Senator Terry Bruce, 40. Crane, a handsome father of six, had served three terms in the House. On the stump, Bruce avoided moral judgments on Crane's censure but maintained that it had undermined his legislative effectiveness.

Unsurprisingly, there were no Mondale coattails. Although the Minnesotan carried Manhattan in New York City with about 65% of the vote, Republican William Green, 55, a three-term incumbent, still managed to win in the so-called Silk Stocking District. Green and his challenger, Democrat Andrew Stein, 39, the Manhattan borough president, spent a total of $1,784,775, making theirs the costliest House race in the nation.

Democrats struggled to find some consolation in the House results. Insisted California's Tony Coelho, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: "The Republicans needed a gain of 26 to look good and they didn't get it." Declared House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who faced no opposition: "The voters sent Democrats to Congress as a safety net for the American public." If that was a silver lining in the postelection cloud hanging over the congressional Democrats, it was hardly a cause for great rejoicing. --By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Neil MacNeil/Washington, with other bureaus

With reporting by Neil MacNeil