WASHINGTON (AP) - The pace of Republican retirements is quickening 14 months before the 2002 Senate elections, with Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas the latest to announce plans to leave and the party anxiously awaiting word from Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson on his political future.

However long it lasts, Democrats are plainly enjoying the exodus ``The Republican caucus is on the defensive,'' Sen. Patty Murray, head of the Democratic campaign committee, claimed Tuesday, shortly after Gramm became the third Republican to announce retirement plans for 2002.

By contrast, she said, ``each and every one of our Democratic incumbents continue to work diligently toward re-election.''

Republicans quickly countered there was little for Democrats to brag about in Gramm's decision to step down in Texas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in more than a dozen years.

``I think that all of our open seats thus far are safe Republican seats that will be returning Republicans to the Senate next year,'' said Dan Allen, a spokesman for the GOP campaign committee.

Democrats will be defending a slender majority in 2002. They hold 50 seats, and the allegiance of one independent, Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont. Republicans hold 49 seats. Republicans must defend 20 of the 34 seats on the ballot next year, and are hoping to minimize the retirements. Like Gramm, Thompson also would be a shoo-in for re-election.

But officials in both parties agreed that if he retires, the result likely would be one of the most competitive contests in the country next year. Several House members in both parties have said previously they would consider the race if Thompson gives up his seat.

An aide said Tuesday that Thompson has not yet made up his mind about running again. Thompson declined to discuss the issue when he met with reporters last month following a trip to China. ``When the time comes I'll talk about it all day,'' he said.

Gramm stepped to the microphones to announce the end of his political career less than two weeks after Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina confirmed his retirement plans. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, 98, is the third GOP retiree. Republican officials concede that Helms' seat, in particular, will be competitive next year, but Democrats claim hope in South Carolina, as well.

Through an aide, Gramm had confirmed plans to run again as recently as June, when Jeffords' defection from the GOP altered the balance of power in the Senate. At his news conference on Tuesday, he said emphatically that his subsequent loss of the chairmanship of the Senate Banking Committee had nothing to do with his decision to retire.

Rather, he said, after nearly a quarter-century in Congress, ``the things I came to Washington to do are done.'' He mentioned balancing the budget, cutting taxes, increasing the budget for the military, rolling back communism and reforming welfare, and said, ``never in American history has so much power been passed back from the federal government to the states to the counties to the cities and to the people, than in the last 25 years.''

Gramm's decision was sudden, and Republicans said he had made up his mind over the weekend.

Still, the names of several potential contenders soon surfaced. Among Republicans, they included Rep. Henry Bonilla and three statewide elected officials, John Cornyn, the attorney general; Tony Garza, railroad commissioner, and David Dewhurst, land commissioner. Potential Democratic contenders included Rep. Ken Bentsen; former Rep. John Bryant; Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk and former state Attorney General Dan Morales.

Gramm was elected to the House in 1978 as a Democrat. Appointed to the House Budget Committee by fellow Democrats in 1981, he worked secretly with Republicans to pass then-President Reagan's budget, and his name is synonymous with key legislation approved that year.

He became a Republican in 1983, and won his Senate seat the following year.

Throughout his career, Gramm has been a relentless foe of big government, willing to clash with Democrats and Republicans alike on the subject. Last year, he roiled Republican waters by insisting on additional spending cuts before signing on to a GOP budget blueprint.

``I have always been happy with the tax cuts I've supported,'' Gramm said Tuesday. He quickly added, ``I still believe that government is too big, too powerful and too expensive and too intrusive,'' and he urged a capital gains tax cut this fall.

In the House, meanwhile, Rep. Stephen Horn, a moderate Republican whose southern Los Angeles County district would be essentially eliminated in the new congressional map proposed by Democrats, said Tuesday he would not run for a sixth term next year.

Horn, 70, was first elected in 1992.