Return To Congress
In 1996, Bill Brewster, a Democrat and former state representative from Madill, Oklahoma who had succeeded Watkins in the 3rd District, decided to retire from Congress as it became known that Watkins wanted his seat back. The House leadership persuaded him to run as a Republican. They promised a seat on the Ways and Means Committee with full seniority if he ran as a Republican and won. No congressman had ever served on all three of the major financial committees (Appropriations, Budget and Ways and Means) before. Despite Albert endorsing Watkins' Democratic opponent State Sen. Darryl Roberts, Watkins won a narrow victory, becoming the first Republican to represent this district called Little Dixie since Oklahoma joined the Union in 1907. The Republicans had never made a serious bid for the seat before.
He initially planned to retire from office in 1998 after undergoing back surgery, but was persuaded to run again. He was handily re-elected that year defeating Walt Roberts and faced no major-party opposition when he ran for his third term in 2000.
Watkins' voting record in his first period in Congress had been characterized as somewhat moderate. During his second period, however, his voting record was strongly conservative, usually receiving ratings in the high 90s from the American Conservative Union.
Read more about this topic: Wes Watkins
Famous quotes containing the words return to, return and/or congress:
“The return to solid values is always hard.... Distress, panic, and hard times have marked our pathway in returning to solid values.”
—James A. Garfield (1831–1881)
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)
“I have a Congress on my hands.”
—Grover Cleveland (1837–1908)