Pastoral Resources

I am proud to be in the Senate. I have always been proud to be a part of our political system. It is a remarkable privilege to participate in this system of ours.

And I am saying, how about the other two branches? And putting the pressure on our representatives in the Senate and the Congress, and the court system. They should be counter-acting this corruption, but they are sitting there silent.

And I have been campaigning for the past three months trying to get the Senate Judiciary Committee that has the oversight authority and responsibility to start its own public hearings.

At that point, which would be around February 2002, they came and they confiscated my computer, because, they said, they were suspecting that I was communicating with certain Senate members and taking this issue outside the Bureau.

I didn't get to the Senate by accident.

The Appropriations Committee in the Senate is out of control, out of control on spending.

The decision of such judges as Claudius and his Senate is worth very little in the question of a man's innocence or guilt; but the sentence was that Seneca should be banished to the island of Corsica.

This has not been a legislative process worthy of the Senate. Members of the Judiciary Committee, as I just said, were implored to save their amendments for the floor. Then, when we got here, we were told no amendments could be accepted.

President Barack Obama has it right - there is a lot to change about Washington. The problem is, not much will get changed unless we confront the runaway filibuster in the U.S. Senate.

When our most important issue is the debt that we're piling on our children and grandchildren, I think it's pretty helpful to have someone in the U.S. Senate who has actually managed billions of dollars and knows how to cut billions of dollars.

But ours was intended to be a citizen government. It is what of, by and for the people means. And when our most important issue in California is the creation of jobs, I think it's quite helpful to have someone in the U.S. Senate or in the governor's seat who actually knows where jobs come from.

The next thing I am doing is moving back home to Minnesota and getting involved in politics. I'm looking at a run for Senate in 2008, but in the meantime I am focused on knitting together the progressive network in the upper Midwest.

We respect the role of the Senate. We respect the authority of the Senate to look at the qualifications of Judge Roberts, and at the end of the day I'm optimistic that if given a fair hearing and a fair opportunity, that he will be confirmed.

Jim, I'm not aware of any formal requests from the Senate Judiciary Committee for these kinds of documents.

I feel very confident that that information should be sufficient for the members of the Senate to make an informed decision about John Roberts' qualifications.

All of us who serve in the House of Representatives and the Senate pay into Social Security.

It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.

What's going on in the Senate is kind of a politics of escalation. We're getting sort of like the Mideast: pay back everybody when you're in charge.

The bottom line is, there have been a lot of nuts elected to the United States Senate.

It's like going into the Senate. You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, 'My God, how did I ever get here?' Then, about six months later, you say, 'How the hell did the rest of them get here?"