I'm proud to be a Democrat.

We need to get rid of the Federal Elections Commission. It's a joke. It doesn't enforce the law.

I'm one of the only members of the U.S. Senate who isn't a millionaire. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with being a millionaire. But there ought to be a little economic diversity in the Senate and I try to provide it.

I will also continue to strongly oppose any reauthorization of the Patriot Act that does not protect the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans with no connection to terrorism.

In my opinion, we need to again consider the possibility of public funding of congressional elections, following the very successful experience with clean money systems in Maine and Arizona.

The most significant impact is what it does in terms of the integrity of the legislative process and the executive process, as opposed to what it does for campaigns. But to remove this unheard of process in the 1990s, where members of Congress are being pushed and shoved every Tuesday to ask for $100,000, $500,000, a million dollars from corporations, unions, and individuals, this was never allowed in American history.

The Tea Party ended up being a shill for corporate America.