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Congress is functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

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.

When Congress legislates in haste, it often causes more problems than it solves. But Congress rarely reconsiders its mistakes.

Congress is so beholden to the money that any solution in the general interest will be frustrated and subverted by the corporate interests who feel they will be damaged by progress, fair play and justice.

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.

Sometimes running for Congress is a four-year strategy in terms of getting out there and building a network.

We all went up to Washington on a mission to change things. What I found is that the Founding Fathers set it up where it's a little more difficult to do. We've got the Senate and the president to deal with.

We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex - but Congress can.

The founders were very worried that if parties developed in America, you might have something like the modern Italian system, where you have 20 different parties that divide Congress and the country and can't govern.

I don't think it's the function of Congress to function well. It should drag its heels on the way to decision.