Stem cell research holds out the promise of finding cures and treatments for a wide range of diseases.

Incivility is a symptom, not the disease. We've always had partisan conflict in Congress, and we always will. Yet when I worked for a year (1970-71) on the staff of Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine, this was a different place, more collegial, more sensitive to data, more concerned about all of the American people. I think because the for-profit media prizes conflict above cooperation and sound bites above analysis, politicians have learned to adapt to those tendencies. Consequently, our public debates are dumbed down as our problems grow more complex.

I do not believe that Congress or the Administration should prohibit the medical community from pursuing a promising avenue of research that may improve the lives of millions of Americans.

President Bush's mercury rule is a gift to the big energy companies that helped put him in office

Stem cell research holds out the promise of finding cures and treatments for a wide range of diseases.

I support exemptions from the estate tax to ensure that when Maine farm owners die, their families will be able to continue to farm the land that they have protected and lived on, often for generations.

The argument on the other side of special rights is completely bogus. It's bogus because you could make exactly the same claim about racial or ethnic or religious minorities.