Republicans on 'contracts' have second thoughts about standing down

In Washington, it often seems that promises are only made to be broken.

Richard Nixon promised the country he wasn't a crook, George Bush said there would be no new taxes, and Bill Clinton swore he never had sex with that woman.

Now a group of congressmen are poised to test the limits of voters' endurance by reneging on a high-profile commitment - one they wish they had never made.

The clock is running out on some of the Republican legislators who first went to Capitol Hill in 1992 and 1994, pledging to limit themselves to a fixed number of terms. But with their self-imposed time limit due to expire next year, several are having second thoughts.

The prospect of some Republicans breaking such a key promise - made from the moral high ground of Newt Gingrich's 'Contract with America' - is not only reinforcing the grubby, 'politics-as-usual' image Washington has with voters; it is also directing the spotlight back on the issue of term limits and whether the idea was such a good one after all.

Only a quarter of the 40 Republican young bucks who swept into office on the back of House speaker Gingrich's conservative revolution promised to limit themselves to a fixed number of terms.

But for those who did, the term limits issue was one of near-religious fervour - one which claimed to symbolise a drive to wrest power from Washington and give it back to the people.