Pelosi, Among Others, Could Exit if Dems Lose House

As Nancy Pelosi goes, so might a generation of her colleagues.
If Democrats lose control of the House of Representatives next week, as most political observers expect, there is a good chance that the House Speaker will exit stage left!!!!!
Other Democrats are sure to follow Pelosi out of the Capitol. In the case of Pelosi's Democratic cloakroom, the exodus could be deeper: five of the 20 current committee chairmen are her allies from California. Without their champion, some veterans such as Education and Labor Committee chairman George Miller, who has been in Congress since 1975, may be inclined to leave. Even if they don't head for the exits, they might choose to abandon their gavels: Standards Committee chair Zoe Lofgren, also of California, is serving at Pelosi's request and has made no secret of her distaste at being her colleagues' ethical watchdog.
All told, half or more of the top Democrats on the House's 20 committees might lose, quit or retire because …....serving in the minority in the House is vastly different from governing. The minority party is almost totally cut out of the legislative process, and their only path to attention is often to do their best to block whatever the majority is doing. For many of the old bulls who survived a dozen years in the minority to get their chance to govern, a return to second-class citizenship is unappealing.


http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2028212,00.html#ixzz13lb8NJz