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10-07-2004 House Leadership - Texans Uncertain How DeLay Rebuke Will Affect Contests Texas partisans indicated today they were uncertain whether the political fallout from another Ethics Committee rebuke of House Majority Leader DeLay would change the debate --or move votes -- in the state's five competitive House races. "It's not hurting me," said Democratic Rep. Charles Stenholm, adding, "We're going to be using more and more of it." Stenholm is locked in a West Texas battle with GOP Rep. Randy Neugebauer that resulted from a redistricting plan championed by DeLay. Stenholm said the redistricting cost rural areas representation in Congress and charged that Neugebauer votes with DeLay 98 percent of the time. The new 19th District combines the cities of Abilene and Lubbock, which previously had separate representatives, and pits the two members of the Agriculture Committee against each other. Neugebauer said the new Texas map still has five West Texas districts and his conservative voting record on issues such as small business and tax cuts is more in line with the district. "Tom DeLay is not running for Congress in the 19th District," he said. "Charlie Stenholm and Randy Neugebauer are." Democratic Rep. Jim Turner, who opted not to run for re-election after redistricting carved up his east Texas district, said campaign themes and media strategy are already well established in Texas races and that he was skeptical the DeLay ethics controversy would shift the debate. "I don't see how those races are going to be driven by the latest" ethics report, he said. In a reconfigured 2nd District, Republican Ted Poe, a former judge, is challenging Democratic Rep. Nick Lampson. Poe campaign manager Heather Ramsey said DeLay's ethics problems have not been an issue so far. "We run our own race," she said. "We run on our own issues and Judge Poe's 22 years on the bench." She said DeLay has not stumped for Poe but helped raise money for Poe and other Texas GOP candidates at joint fundraising events. Earlier in the week, Democratic Rep. Martin Frost said he did not think DeLay's ethics problems would become a dominant issue in his race against GOP Rep. Pete Sessions in a Dallas-area district. In a statement issued today through his spokeswoman, Frost said DeLay violated the trust of the House and left it to voters to decide whether it would hurt his efforts to send more Texas Republicans to Congress. "The Ethics Committee found he acted improperly in his efforts to force new congressional districts in Texas," he said. "Time will tell whether his inappropriate conduct will have any effect in those redrawn districts." -- by Mark Wegner CongressDaily

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