Democrats are now legislatively locked out of governing for a generation in large part due to the controversy of it
I wouldn't say a
generation, but certainly not in a real capacity until at least 2022, barring any unforeseen events that drive more voters to the party. If they had been able to wait until the end of 2010, they could have avoided the fallout that decimated them just in time for Republicans to rig the maps big-time in so many crucial states. Had they avoided that, for the House, we would probably be where we were in the early 2000s, except add a handful of seats to Republicans. Democrats had a real chance to forge a stronger Congressional majority and they blew it over the PPACA, but due to timing of that / 2011's egregious gerrymandering, clustering of Democratic voters into high-performance districts and the more equal distribution of Republican voters, Democrats are now worse off until the next redistricting, and even then, that still only makes things competitive, or basically where they
should be already.
