Do the elected officials in Washington stand with ordinary Americans - working families, children, the elderly, the poor - or will the extraordinary power of billionaire campaign contributors and Big Money prevail? The American people, by the millions, must send Congress the answer to that question.
When elected officials abandon our environment and ruin our natural resources, public health is endangered. I know the importance of providing a clean environment for our children; I have attended more than one funeral for a child who has died from an asthma attack.
No work-family balance will ever fully take hold if the social conditions that might make it possible - men who are willing to share parenting and housework, communities that value work in the home as highly as work on the job, and policymakers and elected officials who are prepared to demand family-friendly reforms - remain out of reach.
Now we have black and white elected officials working together. Today, we have gone beyond just passing laws. Now we have to create a sense that we are one community, one family. Really, we are the American family.
Criticizing Fox News has nothing to do with criticizing the press. Fox News is not a news organization. It is the de facto leader of the GOP, and it is long past time that it is treated as such by the media, elected officials and the public.
As taxpayers, we pay our elected officials to serve the people and protect our state and our interests.
Part of the problem you have is that you don't have a dialogue between elected officials and their constituents. They've built these barricades, these barriers around themselves and tried to avoid interaction with their constituents.
The federal government has failed us, so we, the elected officials of small-town America, are getting tough with illegal immigration.
The American people, in their own families, they understand that you have to do that. You have to make the tough decisions. You have to get your budget. You have got to put it in order. And they expect their elected officials and their leaders to do likewise.
I'm convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials.