By Dan Walters
Sacramento Bee
When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994, California's senior GOP members reaped a bumper crop of power, securing a number of powerful committee chairmanships.
In the wake of last year's takeover by Democrats, however, California's Republican House members are feeling the pinch, not only the loss of power, but journalistic and official investigations into what they did when they had power. And several could fall by the wayside.
Former San Diego Rep. Duke Cunningham's guilty plea on corruption charges may be merely a harbinger of other downfalls. Four of California's 19 GOP members of Congress are feeling some ethical heat, and even if they escape official sanction, the pressure is mounting for them to step aside lest their own voters dump them next year.
This week, Chicago Sun-Times political columnist Bob Novak, who has close ties to the GOP leadership of the House, citing ``Republican sources on Capitol Hill,’’ reported that Riverside County's Jerry Lewis, the ``ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee who has been criticized on ethical grounds, will not seek a 16th term next year. Lewis came under fire last year for pouring millions of dollars worth of earmarks into his heavily Republican Southern California district. He has not apologized and vigorously defended himself behind closed doors in the House Republican Conference.’’
``Lewis,’’ Novak continued, ``is one of at least six Republican House members from California who have faced ethical scrutiny, beginning when Duke Cunningham was sent to prison. Most recently, Rep. Ken Calvert, who was sponsored by Lewis for a coveted Appropriations Committee seat, is under attack. He replaced Rep. John Doolittle, who resigned from the committee because the Justice Department was investigating him."’’
Another on the list of embattled California Republicans is Rep. Gary Miller, whose personal property dealings are under official scrutiny.
Democrats knocked off one Republican congressman, Richard Pombo, last year and are gunning for Doolittle, who barely won re-election in an overwhelmingly Republican district in the Sacramento suburbs.
Lewis and Doolittle won't comment on their campaign plans for next year, but potential GOP successors to both are already lining up. Democrats, of course, would prefer that they and other Republicans under clouds of suspicion hang tough, giving Democratic challengers a better chance of winning. Meanwhile, many Republican leaders hope they step down to make it easier for the party to retain the seats.
There's another irony attached to the declining fortunes of GOP congressmen from California _ the 2001 deal that created their rock-solid districts. Democrats controlled the Legislature and the governorship at the time, and could have ripped off four or five GOP seats, but they opted, instead, for a status-quo deal.
Why? Because increasing Democratic-leaning seats would have thinned the margins of Democratic incumbents, especially in Southern California, and several white members could have been challenged by Latinos in primaries. Had Democrats been more aggressive in 2001, it's likely that they would have picked up more California seats in last year's national power shift.
Control of the House is now an issue in the somewhat fitful efforts in the state Capitol to reform the redistricting process, taking it out of the hands of the Legislature and giving it, instead, to an independent commission.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is hostile to reform because it would preclude a grab of seats after the 2010 census if she needs them to retain Democratic control of the House in 2012, especially if Republicans gain strength in states such as Texas and Florida.
The article is distributed by Scripps Howard News Service (www.scrippsnews.com).