Mr. Chapman gave a glowing account of Senator Ensign's principled voting record. The following quote from the senator explaining his votes against raising the debt ceiling and the Senate Budget Act is quite refreshing:

"Too many members of Congress are too involved in grabbing what they can for their states or districts without enough emphasis on overall fiscal restraint for the sake of the nation as a whole," Ensign said. "We need to usher in a new era of fiscal sanity. I am not willing to subject my children and grandchildren to the level of debt that Congress has created."

While enumerating the Republicans who voted against the raising of the debt ceiling, an editorial in the Washington Times on March 19th (http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060318-101313-5792r.htm) appears to challenge the sincerity of Senator Ensign's vote:

"In a genuinely sincere vote, buttressed by his eight years of opposition to congressional and presidential overspending, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn opposed it as well. Two other Republicans -- Conrad Burns and John Ensign, both of whom are up for re-election and both of whom voted for the pork-infested transportation bill last year -- also voted against raising the debt ceiling."

Was last year's transportation bill one of those complex ones where the good aspects outweighed the bad, was the senator just going along with the herd, or was it a vote to bring home the transportation bacon to Nevada? (I haven't researched any of the specifics such as Nevada's chunk of the pie.)