The use of methamphetamines has become pervasive in our country, and especially in rural areas.

[People] don't like the government telling them what to do or telling them how to live their lives.

If everybody in our caucus had a 50/50 [Democrat/Republican] district, we'd have a lot different discussion. But if they have a 90 percent Democratic district, they don't ever talk to a Republican, they don't have to and they don't want to.

The only thing I can think to do is if the Democratic Party can do what the Republicans have done, which is go in there and take control of these legislatures and governors' areas.

I've tried to maintain my independence in Congress. Sometimes that has meant opposing my own party leaders.

The [Democratic] party's become an urban party, and they don't get rural America. They don't get agriculture.

We [Democrats] have become a party of assembling all these different groups, the women's caucus and the black caucus and the Hispanic caucus and the lesbian-gay-transgender caucus and so forth, and that doesn't relate to people out in rural America.