The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the Government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves.
Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.
People still seem to think that they should vote themselves money. They seem to think there is stuff which they think is the government's job, when it's really the individual's job.
After all, I have spent the better part of my adult life insisting that government be open... that government be accessible... and that government be held accountable to people who voted us into office.
Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: It is single mothers who run a household. Why? Because it's so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they're going to vote.
After a century of striving, after a year of debate, after a historic vote, health care reform is no longer an unmet promise. It is the law of the land.
I can make them voting machines sing Home Sweet Home.
My hope is that 10 years from now, after I've been across the street at work for a while, they'll all be glad they gave me that wonderful vote.
I try hard to convince them it's important - but there's a history of discomfort with minorities voting in some parts of this country, so most especially the older people have to get accustomed to it.
Our history is that we can very aggressively, if necessary, and openly and democratically discuss our differences. We have a democratic history in which we come together and vote on these things.
Clinton passed his first budget without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate. Before it led to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history, it led to a Democratic defeat in the 1994 midterms.
I'm a fiscal hawk. I vote against all taxes, but I do believe the environment, and climate change, is a bigger issue than fiscal deficits are as a risk to the nation.
My family wasn't particularly political. Mom and Dad voted, but that was the extent of their involvement. In fact, I ended up going to U.C. Davis because, to them, Berkeley was too radical.
I had concluded when I was the prosecutor that I would vote against the death penalty if I were in the legislature but that I could ask for it when I was satisfied as to guilt.
You can be out of slavery and have the right to vote, but unless you have access to capital, industry and technology, you can't fulfill your dreams.
Last year, I twice voted against the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations bill because it did not adequately fund education in general, and Native American programs specifically.
The equality among all members of the League, which is provided in the statutes giving each state only one vote, cannot of course abolish the actual material inequality of the powers concerned.
The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood - rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky - they all turn out in one day.
I think what happened during the Great Depression was that African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights but they became impatient for economic emancipation.
This is like a tribute to them, the people who helped me to get here. The thing that makes me feel good about the whole thing is, the fans voted me here.
One of the things I really learned from my first term is the importance of focusing. In that sense, it is a deliberate effort. What I look at with each vote is that priority of whether it's good for the middle class or not.
