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The Senate was an odd compromise between the founders and the early leaders of the republic who wanted a single house which was based on popular sovereignty representing the people and those founders who wanted two houses, the upper house, the Senate, being the more aristocratic.

One difficulty in making the Senate work the way it was intended is that America's electorate is increasingly divided into red and blue states, with lawmakers representing just one color or the other.

The United States Senate wasn't designed to be a majority-rule institution. It was designed to include and accommodate the rights of the minority in small states as well as large states.

One of the reasons that the Senate was structured and founded the way it is, as opposed to the House, it was designed for gridlock. It was designed to stop massive new laws being passed and voted on daily. It was designed to stop the growth of government.

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.

I believe the two biggest mistakes made by the Founders were giving Federal judges life-time appointments and permitting them to be confirmed without the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate.

Senators, like everyone else, want to feel a part of this decision-making process. They want to feel included.

Washington faces many challenges these days, and today's United States Senate needs more trusted conservatives going there to make decisions and choices that put the people first and not the business-as-usual crowd.

You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers.