OKLAHOMA CITY - Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma said Wednesday that voters rejected corruption and complacency, not conservative principles of the GOP, by throwing out so many of his fellow Republican members of Congress.

Coburn, one of the Senate's leading crusaders against so-called pork barrel spending, said many factors contributed to Tuesday's election results, including dissatisfaction with the conduct of the war in Iraq.

"The overriding theme of this election, however, is that the voters are more interested in changing the culture in Washington than changing course in Washington, D.C.," he said in a statement.

"This election was not a rejection of conservative principles per se, but a rejection of corrupt, complacent and incompetent government."

Congress has been hit by a series of scandals, including bribery cases and the congressional page scandal that led to the loss of the House seat of Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned after being confronted with sexually explicit computer messages he had sent to teenage Capitol pages.

Surveys by The Associated Press and television networks showed Republicans' handling of the scandals contributed to a Democratic wave that made Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-California, the speaker-in-waiting.

Democrats picked up more at least 27 House seats and were in striking distance of gaining control of the Senate, depending on the outcome of the Virginia Senate race between incumbent Republican George Allen and Democrat James Webb, who was leading by less than 7,000 votes.

For months, Coburn has contended that earmarks of special projects, or "pork," was at the heart of a scandal involving favors doled out to Congress members by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is cooperating with federal prosecutors in various investigations.

He told The Associated Press on Wednesday that while he strongly favors a federal budget-balancing amendment, a lot can be done to control federal spending by more oversight and eliminating waste.

"The reason it is difficult to get control of spending is nobody is doing their jobs, Democrats or Republicans. They don't want to do their job because they have to make hard decisions."

"This is good for our country. It's a wakeup call," he said of Tuesday's election.

Coburn said a recent CNN survey found 54 percent of Americans "believe government is doing too much, while only 37 percent want government to do more.

"The results of this election reflect that attitude," Coburn said. "Among the Republicans who lost their re-election bids a surprising number were political moderates who advocated a more activist government. Several members of the appropriations committees, which have been on a spending binge, also were not re-elected."

"This election does not show that voters have abandoned their belief in limited government; it shows that the Republican Party has abandoned them. In fact, these results represent the total failure of big government Republicanism."

At the state level, Democrats took 20 of 36 governorships for a majority of 28 top state jobs for the first time in a dozen years.

Despite Coburn's arguments, state-level elections recently suggest that the voters in some states are leery about going too far in restricting spending, as sought by Libertarian groups in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, voters in Maine for the second time in two years rejected a citizen initiative to rein in taxes and spending. The Taxpayer Bill of Rights, known as TABOR, was defeated by a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent.

It was modeled after a constitutional amendment passed in 1992 in Colorado.

Last year, Colorado voters went to the polls and voted to suspend TABOR for five years, giving up $3 billion in tax refunds. Opponents of TABOR in that state said it had led to declines in essential state services, including education and health care.

California voters in 2005 also soundly rejected a proposition to give the governor more power to restrict spending.

TABOR initiatives in several other states have been stymied for various reasons. In Oklahoma, the state Supreme Court this year threw out a TABOR plan because of "illegal activities" of out-of-state petition circulators.

An AP survey of all 149 members of the Oklahoma Legislature in March showed little support for TABOR. Eighty-six lawmakers said they opposed TABOR, only 17 said they were for it and 45 said they were undecided.

Coburn also was critical of the rise in spending at the state level, saying leaders have, in effect, gotten around the state's budget-balancing act by borrowing, under both Democratic and Republican administrations.

He said Oklahoma needs to use surplus funds from high energy prices to replenish troubled pension funds and set up endowments for such programs as college scholarships.