If we can't have the courage to tell our constituents, hey, we've got to cut back, then if we can point to something and say, I would like to vote for more benefits for you, but this balanced budget amendment or statutory spending cap or whatever the device is, is preventing me from doing it.

In his campaign in 2000 Flake had pledged to serve no more than three terms in Congress leaving no later than January 2007 but in early 2005 shortly after being elected for a third time Flake announced that he had changed his mind and would in fact run for re-election in 2006. Flake easily won the Republican nomination against real estate businessman Wil Cardon. In 2007 Flake was removed from the House Judiciary Committee for "bad behavior.

Jeffry Lane "Jeff" Flake (born December 31 1962) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Arizona. Flake was featured in the documentary series How Democracy Works Now: Twelve Stories. Flake was the 2012 Republican nominee to represent Arizona in the U.