I have gotten around my district a lot in the 2-plus years that I have been in Congress, and there are a lot of good things happening in Iowa.

Nobody is following up on attendance and truancy. And what kids tell us is that that tells them nobody cares if they are in school or not.

We need enrichment programs in the after-school hours. Kids need chances to serve and find the resilience that comes with giving back.

This must be a priority for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having this very informative hearing. I really do appreciate this very much.

The WE CARE Act inserts the notion of schools as centers of community throughout Title I, Part A of ESEA.

I want to say to you that there's a Supreme Court decision called Baker v. Nelson, 1972.

Do you believe that the Supreme Court overstepped their constitutional authorities when they went beyond the words of the Constitution?

People always say I have the ability to turn people on.

Now, I believe that I'm going to ask you something you've never been asked before during this hearing, I hope.

Identity politics involves a sense of grievance against the majority, a feeling that racism permeates American society and its institutions.

If the Constitution, as I believe, should be interpreted according to the meaning it had at the time it was ratified, it follows directly that the use of contemporary foreign or international law is not proper.

Seating a Justice on the Supreme Court who does not treat the Second Amendment as a fundamental right deserving of protection against cities and states could do far more damage to the right to keep and bear arms than any legislation passed…

But since the United Nations doesn't share all those norms, importing that single legal proposition into our nation can have very bad consequences for us.

If Judge Sotomayor were a white man who suggested that whites or males made better judges, we would not be having this discussion because the nominee would have been forced to withdraw once those words became public.

I understand, at this hearing, Judge Sotomayor disavowed the use of such materials to have any influence on jurisprudence, and I welcome that disavowal.

As an undergraduate, she actively pushed for race-based goals and time tables for faculty hiring.

Judge Sotomayor's words weren't uttered off the cuff. They were carefully crafted, repeated not just once or twice, but at least seven times over several years.