There is no getting around it; Congress is failing the American people.

Climbing has worked for me in a number of ways on Capitol Hill. I'm much more inclined to look at what people do, as opposed to what they say. Also, it's about working together - we're all on the rope together, and you don't get to cut the rope if you're not getting along with someone.

The new Congress needs to move quickly to strengthen the Army and Marines - not to send more troops to Iraq - but to rebuild our capacity to meet national security threats globally.

Reform is not for the short-winded. I'm committed to making sure the Senate is more than just a graveyard for good ideas.

I support allowing gay couples to marry because of - not in spite of - my values. And many of those values are the same ones deeply held by those who do not believe in gay marriage.

The choreographed standing and clapping of one side of the room - while the other side sits - is unbecoming of a serious institution and the message that it sends is that even on a night when the president is addressing the entire nation, we in Congress cannot sit as one, but must be divided as two.

It is deeply shocking and incomprehensible to me that despite volumes of documentation and living witnesses who can attest to the horrors of the Holocaust, there are still those who would deny it.