Alan K. Simpson

Voluntary public funding of elections solves the free speech 'problem' with more speech instead of more regulation: by giving qualified candidates who show broad-based constituent support enough matching public funds to mount a credible campaign.

Since 1993, I have had the rich satisfaction of knowing and working with many openly gay and lesbian Americans, and I have come to realize that 'gay' is an artificial category when it comes to measuring a man or woman's on-the-job performance or commitment to shared goals. It says little about the person.

Let us end 'don't ask, don't tell.'

Before holding elective office - 12 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives and 18 years in the U.S. Senate - I served a different type of time. I was on probation for a federal offense committed as a teenager.

I am living proof that youth possess a unique capacity to grow and change - that the child who seems hopeless today could go on to change the world.

It was not until my 20s that I began to creep toward maturity.

My parole officer always believed in my capacity for redemption, even when my actions did not inspire confidence.

The Republican Party I represented proudly for 18 years did not shy away from taking on special-interest money when it conflicted with constituents' needs.

America's Founders were committed to a wide-open public forum in which all voices and perspectives could have a chance of being heard.

In World War II, a British mathematician named Alan Turing led the effort to crack the Nazis' communication code. He mastered the complex German enciphering machine, helping to save the world, and his work laid the basis for modern computer science. Does it matter that Turing was gay?

Money's dominance over politics isn't merely one problem of many our country faces. It is the problem! It is a growing crisis that prevents us from tackling anything else.

The concept of government of, by, and for the people isn't just a platitude. It's the moral construction of our nation. It's in our bones.

Without the confidence to know our democracy is functioning properly, we risk more disillusionment, more cynicism, and even more public apathy toward the entire system.

If the need for comprehensive campaign finance reform was not already clear, the Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United permitting unlimited corporate and union spending in campaigns certainly made it so in 2010.

Stemming the tide of special interest campaign cash - and restoring fiscal responsibility in Congress - is no easy task. But there is one place where concerned citizens in both parties can begin: Changing the source of money that funds all campaigns.

Across the nation, there are thousands of individuals serving life or life-equivalent sentences for crimes they committed as children. This means they will likely die in prison without a chance to prove to society they are worthy of a second chance.

If children who commit crimes are not given the opportunity of a second chance, they may die in prison for acts made before having developed the cognitive and emotional skills needed to make informed and smart decisions and choices.

The AARP is a group of 3.8 million Americans bound together by a common love of airline discounts and insurance discounts.

An educated man is thoroughly inoculated against humbug, thinks for himself and tries to give his thoughts, in speech or on paper, some style.

Restoring and maintaining a great nation's fiscal health will require not just sound arguments and an engaged public but something more. It will require an electoral system that encourages our representatives to place the long-term interests of the public ahead of parochial special interests.

The person you are at 13 or 17 is not the person you are at 30, 40, or 50. Everyone old enough to look back on his or her teenage years knows this.

I served three terms in the U.S. Senate and was co-chairman of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform in 2010. So I know a bit about how Washington operates, and I have had plenty of experience doing the work of running for office.

Any education that matters is liberal. All the saving truths, all the healing graces that distinguish a good education from a bad one or a full education from a half empty one are contained in that word.

The word liberal distinguishes whatever nourishes the mind and spirit from the training which is merely practical or professional or from the trivialities which are no training at all.

There is no 'slippery slope' toward loss of liberties, only a long staircase where each step downward must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders.