I have been an organizer and then activist and a legislator, all of that. But then there's this big gap after I advanced in Congress and ended up as the ranking member of financial services committee. It took me into the financial services issues and Wall Street and Dodd Frank. And it took me away from the things that I did years ago.
I want to be influential as a legislator.
But there is merit even in the mentally retarded legislator. He asks the questions that everyone is afraid to ask for fear of seeming simple.
The job of a legislator is much more fixing existing law, revising it, improving it, than it is passing something that doesn't exist.
The legislator should direct his attention above all to the education of youth.
I'm not a legislator. I've never been a lobbyist. I've never worked a session before, but based on my conversations with leadership in the Senate and the House, I get the general sense that people want to work together to make things happen.
The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes: 1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.
My concept of hitting the ground running and being an effective legislator is to focus on my district and having really good constituent work.
Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is that to which the legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement.
