Hard to imagine 40 years ago people could be convicted of a crime, fined, sent to prison for using the most common forms of birth control.

We are dealing with the question of the 11 million people paying their taxes, having a path to legalization and, then, ultimately, to citizenship. Tough issues but we are coming together and I think we can do it.

Those of us who believe in God and those of us who have dedicated our lives to helping others in the name of God don't want to take a second seat to anyone who is suggesting that one word out of the platform means that the Democrats across America are godless.

We have 11 million people in this country that need a pathway to citizenship.

Under unitary executive theory, the [George W.]Bush administration has claimed the right to seize American citizens in the United States and imprison them indefinitely without a charge.

If you look at the record and the enviable record which Sandra Day O'Connor has written, you find she was the fifth and decisive vote to safeguard Americans' right to privacy, to require our courtrooms to grant access to the disabled, to allow the federal government to pass laws to protect the environment, to preserve the right of universities to use affirmative action, to ban the execution of children in America.

It is unacceptable that disabled veterans in Illinois rank at the bottom of the list when it comes to disability pay. We owe our disabled veterans more than speeches, parades and monuments.