CAPITO FILES FOR CONGRESS - Democrat Swint Her Opposition

(01/14/2004)
Republican Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito has filed to run for re-election in West Virginia's Second District.

Democrat Howard Swint filed to run against her yesterday.

The state's lone Republican member of Congress calls her relationship with the majority-Democrat delegation a "work in progress."

Capito won the seat in 2000 after defeating Democrat James Humphreys, a Charleston millionaire lawyer who spent more than five million dollars in the campaign. In a rematch last year, Humphreys spent more than eight million dollars on his losing effort.

Swint is a Charleston real estate broker. He says his campaign will focus public attention on the corrupting influence that special interests hold over the state's lawmakers in Washington. He also says he'll make campaign financing and lobbying reform an issue in 2004.

Swint staged an unsuccessful primary campaign for the seat in 1996.