WASHINGTON -- Republican Lawrence J. Hogan Jr., who in 1992 gave Democratic Rep. Steny H. Hoyer his only tough re-election challenge despite being outspent by a 6-1 margin, said yesterday that he will not run for the 5th District seat again this year.
Mr. Hogan's surprise announcement left Maryland Republicans looking for a strong candidate to oppose the seven-term incumbent, who, as chairman of the Democratic Caucus, is the fourth-ranking member of the House leadership.
Throughout 1993, Mr. Hogan, 37, said he planned to challenge Mr. Hoyer again this year. But, yesterday, he said that after taking more than a year from his commercial real estate brokerage to run in 1992, he wants to concentrate on rebuilding his business.
He also said that Congress' failure to adopt campaign finance reforms left him facing the prospect of running against an incumbent who "plans to shamelessly spend even more money than the ludi
crous amount he spent in 1992."
Mr. Hoyer, 54, spent $1.6 million in 1992 while Mr. Hogan spent $265,000. "While I think that his war chest of special interest money is disgraceful," said Mr. Hogan, "I also know that it is a reality."
He said he might run for the seat in 1996 if Mr. Hoyer is re-elected.
Joyce Lyons Terhes, chairwoman of the Maryland Republican Party, said she would be "out there looking" for a strong candidate with appeal in the Prince George's County part of the district, which
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is home to nearly 50 percent of the 5th District voters.
Arthur A. "Bud" Marshall, the Prince George's County state's attorney from 1963 to 1987, said he is considering the race now that Mr. Hogan is out of it.
Mr. Marshall, 63, an Upper Marlboro lawyer, switched parties, from the Democratic to the Republican, before unsuccessfully trying to reclaim the prosecutor's office in 1990.
"He's beatable," he said of Mr. Hoyer.
Republican Harold R. Moroz of Churchton in Anne Arundel County is already in the race. Mr. Moroz, 35, a former Army captain who moved to Maryland when he left the service in July 1992, is running "very much a conservative campaign" that emphasizes opposition to abortion, increased taxes and gays in the military, and supports prayer in public schools and increased use of the death penalty.
Until 1992, the 5th District was limited to Prince George's County. Mr. Hoyer won the seat in a 1981 special election with 55 percent of the vote and then went on to take 72 percent
to 82 percent of the vote in his first five re-election bids.
In redrawing election maps in 1992, the General Assembly created a much more conservative district by shifting a large portion of Prince George's County into the new 4th District and creating a new 5th District that includes Calvert, St. Mary's and Charles counties, along with southern Anne Arundel County and a portion of Prince George's.
Mr. Hoyer won 53 percent of the vote in 1992 to Mr. Hogan's 44 percent. The other 3 percent went to an independent. Mr. Hoyer BTC lost in Anne Arundel, Calvert, Charles and St. Mary's counties but overcame that by winning 60 percent of the vote in Prince George's County.