More than 10,000 ballots in Miami-Dade County have been rejected by some machine without any opportunity for a human being to take a look. That is just not right.

We have to stop this violence. We have to make the political nature of the violence clear, that the violence we experience in our own homes is not a personal family matter, it's a public and political problem. It's a way that women are kept in line, kept in our places.

The Violence Against Women Act is so important. It provides money to train the cop on the beat, to train the judges that this is a new day, that we won't tolerate this violence and to know how to deal with it.

I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism. I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy.

When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law.

Some of us may just, in one-on-one conversations with our family, with our friends, over the back fence with our neighbors, talk about the reality of our lives and realize that we're not alone, that we have a right to be physically safe and emotionally safe in our own homes.

When I hear traditional family values raised, I hear that effort once again to re-establish the man as head and master of his family. Who had the, not only the right, but the obligation to discipline his wife and children to keep them in line?