[John R. (Bob) Locke]

For those who voted for the Contract With America to hand control of Congress to Republicans, the more important question is simply, will the GOP leadership remember it's limited government principles if it doesn't have to worry about losing control of the House? Unfortunately, the answer may already be in. This year Republicans in Congress have passed the largest expansion in federal entitlements in four decades and have presided over record increases in domestic spending. But for Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, "It's up in the air." Mr. Pence led the revolt among conservative House Republicans against the prescription drug bill this month and says now: "Sometimes I think my colleagues want to stand up for what's right, and sometimes I think the pressures for higher spending are too great."

There's the whole thing in one paragraph.

[longtermmemmory]

The reason it has drawn so little attention is that the case law has already been settled on the subject. The Republicans lost the cases when they objected.

Democrats also think that they will just redraw them back to the way they were when they favored democrats.

Does this help conservatives? Yes, because it makes it safer to have open discusions in a conservative context. It no longer becomes wheter to privatize social security but how to do it. Topics which were impossible to raise in an environment with a viable democrat party will become agenda subjects in an environment with a marginalized wakado democrat party.

[GeronL]

DALLAS--Gerrymandering is one of the most important factors influencing elections today. And now it appears that the practice of drawing the often bizarrely shaped districts is about to cement Republican control of the House for at least the rest of this decade.

Democrats were doing it for decades, nobody said it was bad, so we Texans assumed it was ok.

[AwesomePossum]

The democrats have been doing this stuff for decades.....and anyone who thinks that DeLay's counterparts on the democrat side over those decades were not involved in the planning.....well they just don't know much about the subject.

Also, Bush, when he goes after the sacred cows of the democrats, after 2004, will be able to say,"I did not start off cutting and slashing, but tried to work with the democrats and put more money into their sacred cow programs, but now we know it just doesn't work to keep throwing money down these rat holes, so it's time for some changes." And, he will be standing on firm footing as he says it.