Harry M. Wurzbach

By 1916 Harry Wurzbach had returned to campaigning. He ran on the Republican ticket for United States Congressman from Texas's 15th congressional district, against the popular incumbent, John Nance Garner, who had held the seat since 1902 when the district was created. Wurzbach lost 3 to 1 across the district, failing to carry Guadalupe County. Garner was elected for a total of 14 consecutive terms from this district.

When the U.S. entered the war against the German Empire in 1917, the local German Americans suffered a wave of hatred, and were accused of being traitorous sympathizers to the Kaiser's side. To defuse tensions, Wurzbach helped to organize a show of loyalty by his fellow German Americans, who became active in the Red Cross and the "First Aid Legion", and publicized their purchase of many war bonds.

Wurzbach took Alvin J. Wirtz as a law partner. His wife was the daughter of a popular and well-connected doctor in Seguin. Wirtz was from Columbus, Texas as was Wurzbach's wife. They opened their offices in the First National Bank Building in 1917. They also worked in the Guadalupe County Abstract Company, Wurzbach as Manager and Wirtz as Secretary. Wurzbach became a lifelong mentor to his partner, who was 14 years younger.

Wurzbach had a place on the Republican ticket in 1918, as a state-wide candidate for judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals. He was crushed, losing by 7 to 1 to the Democratic candidate, but he carried his home county.

In 1920, redistricting moved Guadalupe County out of Garner's 15th district, and into the 14th congressional district. Wurzbach ran for Congress in the general election, and unseated the freshman Democratic Representative Carlos Bee of San Antonio, 17,265 (55.6 percent) to 13,777 (44.4 percent). Reflecting the high rate of immigration and migration to Texas for decades, Wurzbach was the first native Texan to win election as a Republican to Congress. In 1922, 1924, and 1926, Wurzbach won by margins of 54.8, 62.4, and 57.2 percent, respectively, the first Republican since Reconstruction to win more than two terms. He won his seat even as the Republican presidential candidates in 1920 and 1924, Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, lost the electoral vote of Texas. The Democratic-majority state had supported Democrats for president since the end of Reconstruction and continued to do so into the 1940s.

Wurzbach was a delegate to the 1924 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, which nominated President Coolidge. But despite the opportunity that Wurzbach's election gave the Republicans, the national party leaders did not welcome him. They preferred to keep control of patronage jobs to themselves, and worked to undermine him.

In 1928, the powerful, patronage-based Democratic machine in San Antonio (along with Sam Johnson and Archie Parr)[6] targeted Wurzbach for defeat, and returns appeared to show him losing reelection. That year, the Republican Presidential candidate Herbert Hoover carried Texas over the Democrat Al Smith, whom many Southern Democrats opposed because he was Roman Catholic. But, Wurzbach polled 27,206 (49.7 percent) to a reported 29,055 (50.3 percent) for the Democrat Augustus McCloskey of San Antonio.

Wurzbach contested the election, claiming irregularities. He appealed his case to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. After an investigation into the corrupt voting practices in San Antonio, the House ultimately reversed McCloskey's election (after he had served for eleven months) and seated Wurzbach on February 10, 1930. Wurzbach won another term in November 1930, when he polled an impressive 27,206 (59.3 percent) to Democrat Henry B. Dielmann's 18,707 (40.7 percent).

While contesting the 1928 election, Wurzbach was charged in 1930 with violating the Federal Corrupt Practices Act for receiving money from federal employees for his primary campaign. The District Court threw out the indictment, based on two grounds: 1) That the term "political purpose" in the law did not include the behavior in question; and 2) If the term did include the behavior, then the Act was unconstitutional, as it was applied to state activities beyond its scope, not a federal election. The Democratic US Attorney appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court, which ruled in United States v. Wurzbach against the lower court, and remanded the case for resolution. The case may have been dropped; Wurzbach died in 1931 and his official congressional biography does not refer to the charges.[7]

With the Great Depression gathering force, Republican incumbents lost many seats in 1930, but the party still had majority control of the House of Representatives. Wurzbach died in office in 1931. His seat was filled by a special election, won by the Democrats. They gained control of Congress with 217 seats to the Republicans' 215.[8] The Republican Party did not regain a majority in the House until after the 1946 elections.

Because of the disfranchisement of African Americans by the dominant Democratic Party in the state, after Wurzbach, no other Republican was elected to represent Texas in Congress until 1950, when Ben H. Guill won a special election, serving the remaining eight months of the term. Until the late 20th century, the state was dominated by the Democratic Party. After Congress passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts in the mid-1960s, the black minority in Texas switched to the Democratic Party, which nationally had supported their cause of enforcing constitutional rights, even though the Act was passed only due to heavy Republican support in spite of Southern Democratic opposition within the Congress.