Democrats Now Favored to Take Over DeLay's Old Seat
    By Greg Giroux
    CQPolitics.com

    Monday 28 August 2006

    The Texas Republican Party establishment has rallied around a single candidate, Houston City Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, in their unusual write-in campaign to salvage the 22nd Congressional District seat vacated in June by Tom DeLay, the former House majority leader.

    But the extreme rarity of successful write-in campaigns for Congress and the presence of a solid Democratic nominee on the ballot in former Rep. Nick Lampson has prompted CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the 22nd District race to Leans Democratic from No Clear Favorite.

    The GOP faces a world of trouble in this race because of a serious miscalculation on the part of DeLay and his party colleagues.

    Party officials initially were encouraged by DeLay's decisions to renounce the nomination he had won in the March 7 primary and to resign from Congress on June 9. Though long one of the most powerful figures in Texas and national politics, DeLay faced a still-pending trial for alleged state campaign finance violations and ethics controversies stemming from his past ties to now-convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

    A mediocre performance in the primary signaled to many, including DeLay, that he was at risk of losing to Democrat Lampson, despite the typically strong Republican leanings of voters in the suburban Houston district. DeLay's dropout was predicated on his plan to disqualify himself from running for re-election in Texas by relocating his residence to Virginia.

    But Democrats successfully sued in federal district court, contending that DeLay and the Republicans could not prove that DeLay would not be a resident of Texas on Election Day and therefore ineligible to run. The upholding of that ruling by a federal appeals court and a Supreme Court decision not to accept the matter on an emergency basis prevented the state Republican Party from removing DeLay's name from the ballot and replacing him with a new and less embattled candidate.

    Following the rulings, DeLay in early August did withdraw from the race, but that left the Republican ballot line blank - forcing the party to go the write-in route.

    Sekula-Gibbs was not the only Republican who wanted the party's support to stage the write-in bid:David G. Wallace, mayor of DeLay's hometown of Sugar Land, announced that he planned to run. His decision to defer in light of the party establishment's backing of Sekula-Gibbs allowed the party to present a veneer of unity, which officials say will enable them to pull off the write-in feat in a district that gave 64 percent of its votes to President Bush in his 2004 re-election race.

    But only four times in the past 75 years has a general election candidate for the House or the Senate been elected with write-in votes - and it has not happened since 1982. (A detailed history of write-in campaigns since World War II can be found here).

    Texas Republicans officials announced they were backing Sekula-Gibbs on Aug. 17 - leaving the candidate with just 82 days to raise the sizable campaign treasury that will be needed to promote her campaign and also educate voters about how to cast a valid write-in ballot.

    The success of the initiative is highly dependent on persuading voters to go out of their way to maintain their Republican voting habits. Though Sekula-Gibbs does not have DeLay's political baggage, she also is far less well-known than the resigned incumbent.

    She also is running against a politically experienced and well-funded opponent in Lampson, who accumulated a huge campaign treasury in anticipation that he would be facing DeLay. As July began, Lampson had $2.2 million remaining in his campaign account.

    In addition, the potential non-Democratic vote could be split, as the Libertarian Party nominee Bob Smither presents a much easier option for voters who are unfamiliar with the write-in effort or do not want to vote for Sekula-Gibbs. Smither has said that, if elected, he would organizationally align with the Republicans and back the re-election of Illinois Republican J. Dennis Hastert as Speaker.

    Smither may present a more viable choice in his own right than most alternative party candidates. He has drawn attention and praise locally for his efforts on behalf of missing children: He co-founded the Laura Recovery Center - an organization based in his hometown of Friendswood, Texas, that aids in the search for and return of missing children - that is named in tribute to Smither's daughter Laura, who was abducted and killed in 1997 at the age of 12.

    The 22nd District becomes the first House seat being defended this year by the Republicans in which the Democratic nominee is rated as having a clear edge.