What we have done with No Child Left Behind is squeeze the creativity out of the classroom because teachers have begun to just teaching to the test.
Claire McCaskill
Along with my colleagues Mark Warner and Sheldon Whitehouse, I have been working to end the process of secret holds, which is when senators anonymously block legislation or nominations without explanation.
Being a new mother was a joyful and sometimes overwhelming experience - and as the first Missouri female state legislator to have a baby while in office, having heath care for myself and my son gave me some needed peace of mind.
I think there are certain folks in Missouri that don't trust government. And they haven't trusted government for a long time.
There's nothing that irritates Americans more than the fact that some members of Congress think they are entitled to their own set of rules. And it's true - too many people in Washington live in an alternate reality.
You know, we've got to be responsible about our debt. We don't want the United States to ever be a dead beat, and not be able to pay its bills, either to our soldiers who are fighting or to Social Security recipients.
The political system loves the extremes, it doesn't so much show a lot love for the moderates.
You know I think the president has to really focus on getting elected to a second term in 2012. And I need to focus on making sure I'm accountable to the people of Missouri.
When I was a single, working mom with a newborn, I learned just how vital it is to have comprehensive, affordable health care.
I never need to go far if I need a reminder of how important Medicare and Social Security are to Missouri's seniors. My mom, Betty Anne, is one of millions for whom these services provide a reliable safety net. Across the country, these protections are an integral part of sustaining millions of seniors' health and dignity.
Respecting the Second Amendment does not mean abandoning common sense. The right to own guns in this country must remain, while we also must strengthen our laws to prevent mass shootings.
Obviously, I have been a pro-choice candidate for my entire political career, and obviously there is controversy always surrounding this issue.
When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court.
As a member of the Aging Committee, I'm no stranger to fighting for America's seniors.
I'm the only United States Senator in the country that I'm aware of that's had the far left up on TV and the far right up on TV against me at the same time.
I'm a moderate. I hang out in the middle. I vote against my party with some regularity and try to compromise. It doesn't appear right now that the Republican Party is welcoming moderates any more.
If you look through history, all of the great work we've done in Congress has been around a table of compromise, when it comes to the most difficult problems.
Only in Washington would the Republican operatives get the entire press corps ginned up over the notion that I'm going to be home campaigning instead of going to a bunch of worthless parties at a convention that's only being held to do something we all know is going to happen anyway.
Corporate governance is a huge issue too. We don't have women on these corporate boards. More than half of the students in law school are women, more than half of the women, I think, in medical school now are women.
I was in the room with, you know, more than a dozen Republicans trying to negotiate the stimulus. Most of them decided the politics of the situation meant they should walk away, even if it wasn't responsible in terms of what our country needed right then.
I think, first of all, you know, Washington has a bad habit of a very short attention span.
I have been very independent from day I arrived in Washington.
I think I'm the last Democrat left in the Senate after Russ Feingold was defeated that won't take earmarks.
I voted against my party with some frequency, because of my independence. I've just got to remind Missourians that I am independent and that I try to call them like I see them, and sometimes my party is wrong on some things.
My first obligation is my job. It's very hard to really get into campaign mode when you've got to focus on doing the work.
When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate.
When the Tea Party comes to town, compromise goes out the door.
I don't know how anyone can keep a straight face and say they are for deficit reduction while they insist on a permanent tax cut for the wealthiest Americans, completely unpaid for.
Do I want Social Security to be there for my kids and my grandkids? Absolutely. Will I fight like a tiger to make sure that we protect Social Security? I absolutely will.
I am a small-town girl.
You never know what'll happen in politics.
Somehow in the public sector, if you start in the mailroom and spend your life getting promoted, it's unseemly.
I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern... in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, 'I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.' I kind of took that guy seriously - I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.
No commander in chief would ever say, 'I'm not going to listen to the guys on the ground.'
We still have not been able to move into those positions in our country that are really directing traffic among that 1 percent, and that's where women have to break through.
Well, I'm wrestling alligators.
I've got a really hard election. If you had a really hard election and it was after Labor Day would you go to North Carolina to a bunch of parties and glad-handing or would you stay home and work as hard as you know how to convince Missourians they should rehire you?
I'm asking regular folks to be my super PAC.
We have a lot of things we give away to people who are very, very wealthy in this country. And I'm not sure that our federal government can afford that.
Frankly, earmarking is not the problem. It is a symptom of the problem.
There are three legs of the stool; spending, entitlements and making the tax code fair and equitable. That's the three legs of the stool. If we do all of those in a responsible, bipartisan way, I think the American people would all be very, very happy.
All the movies where I play nice guys don't seem to do very well.
I'm going to work with Republicans when they do things I agree with and I'm going to fight Republicans when they're doing things that I think are damaging.
It's very American, making a lot of money.
Many civil rights came about, not when they were passed into law, but because the federal government did what it should and saw them enforced.
Many countries struggle and never get to the point where people have faith that laws are executed fairly.
Clearly, a large number of African-Americans don't have faith that the laws are being executed fairly in Ferguson, and that's a problem... We need to ensure Africans-Americans feel confident in the rule of law.
We need candidate schools to recruit more young African-Americans to run for office and more diverse law enforcement communities.
You have to be willing to offend in order to make progress.
The U.S. military is the best-trained, most effective fighting force the world has ever known. And the conduct of the vast majority of our service members makes Americans rightfully proud.
