Texas Redistricting Is One More Hurdle for DeLay

By Rick Lyman
The New York Times

Thursday 12 January 2006

Houston - Representative Tom DeLay is in the toughest re-election campaign of his 11-term House career, a battle that might be decided not only by his legal problems, but also by the Congressional redistricting plan he spearheaded in 2003.

The redistricting led to the loss of six Democratic seats in Texas in 2004, but it also shifted thousands of Democratic voters to strong Republican districts. Among those, Mr. DeLay's 22nd District added several Democratic-leaning parts of Galveston County; several political analysts estimate they may have raised the district's Democratic vote around 5 percent.

"There is huge irony here," said Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist. "Six Democrats in Congress were eliminated, but the seventh victim may turnout to be the author of the plan."

Should Mr. DeLay survive, as expected, a March 7 primary challenge by three Republican opponents, in November he will face a former Democratic congressman, Nick Lampson, whose district once included those parts of Galveston County now in Mr. DeLay's district.

Mr. Lampson lost his seat in 2004 when his district, the Second, was reconfigured into a Republican-dominated one. He moved into the 22nd District last April, he said, with the intention of taking on Mr. DeLay.

"I'm not running against him because he took my district," Mr. Lampson said, seated in a two-room suite of campaign offices in Clear Lake. "I'm running against him because I think I was a better member of Congress than he was, and I can be again."

Mr. DeLay, who has been a regular presence in the district in recent weeks, paused on his way out of a speech to the Rotary Club of Pasadena South to reflect on the race ahead.

"Of course, it's going to be a tough race," he said, spinning in his right palm a silver dollar a constituent had just given him as a good-luck piece. "The entire Democratic machine has come down here from all over the country after me."

Local Republican leaders play down the chances that Mr. DeLay will be defeated in a district that remains predominantly Republican.

"The only people who consider this possible are clearly delusional," said Eric Thode, Republican chairman in Mr. DeLay's home county of Fort Bend. "It's not a competitive district. It's not even an issue."

Without question, Mr. DeLay has had a rough patch.

Indicted by a Travis County grand jury in September for state campaign finance law violations, he was forced to step down from his post as House majority leader temporarily. Next, a longtime political associate, Jack Abramoff, was indicted, then pleaded guilty last week to public corruption charges under an agreement to cooperate with federal prosecutors. Mr. DeLay, who failed to have his own case expedited, permanently resigned as majority leader on Saturday, saying he did not want his travails to become a distraction for the party.

Now, he will be running for re-election while standing trial in Austin on money laundering charges in a case over campaign financing that Mr. DeLay paints as politically motivated. Meanwhile, Washington waits to see what other indictments might flow from the Abramoff scandal.

"I think there is a 50-50 chance DeLay won't even be in the race in November," said Calvin C. Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

If he does stay in the race - and Mr. DeLay insists he will - he has the demographics of the 22nd District to bolster him.

"Despite everything, it's extremely difficult to dislodge Tom DeLay in a district with such a strong Republican base and a strong, straight-ticket Republican voting trend," said Ted Delisi, a Republican strategist in Austin.

Yet the district has changed since 2003, and not in Mr. DeLay's favor. Running in the reconfigured district for the first time in 2004, Mr. DeLay won handily, but with a smaller margin than in previous elections: 55 percent compared with his Democratic opponent's 41 percent.

The district spreads across the southern rim of the Houston metroplex, from Galveston through the southern Houston suburbs of Harris County and into more rural Brazoria County and Fort Bend County, which includes Mr. DeLay's hometown of Sugar Land.

"I am sure the Democrats are going to pour money into this race," said Jared Woodfill, the Harris County Republican chairman. "But I think the congressman is going to be successful in March and in November. What is different this cycle is that people on both sides have started working harder and earlier."

Mr. DeLay is opposed in the Republican primary by Michael Fjetland, who has run against him before; Pat Baig, a former teacher and political novice; and Tom Campbell, a Houston lawyer who lives in Sugar Land and served in Washington as general counsel to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration during the administration of the first President Bush.

Supporters of Mr. DeLay portray Mr. Fjetland and Ms. Baig as mischief-makers with little financing. Mr. Campbell, the latest entrant, appears to have solid credentials as a conservative Republican and promises to raise $400,000 to fight Mr. DeLay over the next two months.

"He seems like a decent enough guy," Mr. Woodfill said of Mr. Campbell, "but the fact is he has not been active in the party. And he hasn't got much time to mount a serious campaign."

Mr. Campbell said that his outsider status would help him with voters weary of Mr. DeLay's hard-knuckled politics.

"Congressman DeLay has employed an 'ends justified the means' approach and, somewhere along the way, has cut corners and engaged in ethical lapses," Mr. Campbell said before a campaign event at a Houston law firm Wednesday. "This is an uphill battle, but Tom DeLay has been kind enough to come part way down the hill."

The general election in November is further complicated by the emergence of another former congressman, Steve Stockman, an ardently conservative Republican who also once represented a part of what is now the 22nd District. Mr. Stockman has said he may run as an independent, a move Republican leaders fear might cost Mr. DeLay votes.

Wade Webster, a Republican precinct chairman in Clear Lake, said he thought the party would stand behind Mr. DeLay, for now.

"It's going to be tougher, yes, with all the bad publicity and the innuendos and what-not," he said. "Until something more definitive comes out, I'm supporting him. But I retain the option to change my mind."

Democrats, meanwhile, happily cite polls suggesting that Mr. DeLay is in jeopardy and insist that his problems will undermine him in the district, even if it is Republican.

In a poll for The Houston Chronicle last March, for instance, 40 percent of the respondents in Mr. DeLay's district said their opinion of him had dropped in the previous year. And a USA Today/Gallup poll in early December showed Mr. DeLay with a favorability rating of just 37 percent, and had him losing to an unnamed Democratic opponent 49 percent to 36 percent.

Mr. DeLay and his supporters question the polls' methodologies and say his support is significantly stronger. "We have our own internal polls showing us doing much better," Mr. DeLay said, flipping that silver dollar.

He paused and held up the dollar between his thumb and index finger.

"Am I allowed to keep this?" he asked. "What do you think? Am I allowed to keep this?"

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