Help wanted: why are so many potential candidates passing on the chance to run for seats in the House in 2004?

With just 11 months to go until the 2004 elections, this is recruiting season, the time when party leaders fan out around the country in an effort to persuade potential candidates to run for Congress. This year, however, for Democrats and Republicans alike, it's becoming an increasingly tough sell.

Lisa Boscola of Pennsylvania is a case in point. A Democratic State Senator midway through a four-year term, she was a natural to run for a seat in the House of Representatives next year. There was a rare open seat in a rare swing district--one in which voters are evenly divided so that either a Democrat or a Republican could win--and her chances looked good. In the House, Republicans currently outnumber Democrats 229 to 205 (with one Independent), and powerful Democrats in Washington were wooing her to run.

But at a private dinner, she says, Pennsylvania Governor Edward G. Rendell, a Democrat, told her he needed every Democratic vote he could muster to sustain his veto in the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania Senate. She settled the "tug-of-war," as she calls it, in Rendell's favor.

"It's flattering to be asked," Boscola says. "But I kept thinking to myself, 'My biggest problem is, What would happen if I win?' " She is the third Democrat in the state's 15th Congressional District to opt out of the race.

Part of the reason that candidates are deciding not to run for House seats is that there are fewer seats worth running for. In the House, which has two-year terms, all 435 members are up for re-election in 2004. (In the Senate, which has six-year terms, 33 Senators--a third of the body--will be chosen.) But redistricting has reduced the number of competitive House districts to about four dozen, and few people want to undertake a campaign without having a real chance of winning.

POWER SHIFT

Yet even in districts like Pennsylvania's 15th, where seats are genuinely up for grabs, qualified candidates are staying away. They are citing family considerations, the grueling demands of fund raising, campaign mudslinging, and a sense that Washington has lost its allure, that the real action is now at the state level.

Boscola says her decision had a lot to do with the shift toward state power. Though she was arrested for drunk driving three years ago, she was re-elected to her State Senate seat with 63 percent of the vote. She insists fear of tough questions in a campaign for national office didn't deter her.

Her decision to remain on the state level mirrored that of many other politicians, says Sandy Maisel, a political scientist at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, who studies why people do not run. "A lot of people said, 'The things I'm most interested in are being decided in the state capital. They're not being decided in Washington.'"

That perceived shift of power, away from the federal government and toward the states, is another chapter in the history of federalism--the governing principle that underlies the U.S. Constitution and defines how states and the national government retain separate governing powers. Beginning with Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s, power has gradually shifted to the states in areas ranging from health care to the environment to business regulation.

'THE WHOLE BALLGAME'

The official line from Republicans and Democrats alike is that recruiting this year is right on track. Republicans say more than 10 candidates who lost narrowly to Democrats have signed on again, and Representative Robert T. Matsui, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, says recruiting was picking up now that President Bush's poll numbers are slipping.

The truth may be somewhere in between. Representative Tom Davis of Virginia, former chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee, says recruiting this year had "been sparse on both sides." Davis, who speaks of good recruiting as "the whole ballgame," says that he is not above playing on potential candidates' emotions.

"We'd get them here under the Capitol dome, have their wife take a picture, have the Speaker of the House tell how important they'll be," he says. "You're not selling the lifestyle. You're not selling the salary. You're selling relevance."

Or not. State Senator Connie Williams, a Democrat, chose not to run for a seat in Pennsylvania's Sixth district. In the House of Representatives, she realized she would be one of 435 members.

"In the Pennsylvania Senate," she says, "I'm one of 50, and in our caucus I'm one of 21. There's a big difference."

For Boscola, being courted by party heavyweights was all very heady. "You get that first impression," she says, "and you're all google-eyed." But at her dinner with Governor Rendell, she began to feel that his interest in her was genuine--unlike that of the men in Washington.

"Really, to them, it's a number," she says. "They want to pick up a seat."

Upfront QUIZ 2

DIRECTIONS: Circle the letter next to the best answer

1. Which is the best description of a swing district?

a one that traditionally swings in favor of Democrats

b one that traditionally swings in favor of Republicans

c one that usually swings for Independents

d one in which voters are so evenly divided that either a Democrat or a Republican could win

2. What is the current political lineup in the U.S. House of Representatives?

a Republicans have a 10-seat majority.

b Republicans have a 24-seat majority (There is one Independent.)

c Democrats have a 2-seat majority.

d The House is split evenly.

3. Governor Rendell says he needs Lisa Boscola's vote

a to help sustain his vetoes.

b because Democrats control the Pennsylvania Senate.

c to maintain his ranking among Democratic Governors.

d to keep Democrats in power in her district.

4. What percent of the U.S. House of Representatives is up for re-election in November 2004?

a 100 percent

b 30 percent

c 75 percent

d 50 percent

5. How many years are there in one term of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives?

a four years

b six years.

c two years.

d Term length varies according to the population of a Representative's district.

6. Which one of the following do potential candidates cite as reasons for avoiding service in the House?

a low salaries.

b the demands of fund raising and family considerations

c little or no contact with the President

d concerns about terrorism in Washington, D.C.

Shell Gay Stolberg is a correspondent in the Washington bureau of The New York Times.