>> i started in april of 2013. that was when most -- when the campaign kicked off in full for the three of us or athree of th four of us, and officially for the candidate who was the frontrunner the following month. started our first poll, i remember a pollster came back and said well, i have good news and bad news. the good news is out of four candidates you're in second. the bad news is you were 32 points behind the person who is in first, who is former congresswoman march gol is who was related to the clintons and chelsea clinton's mother-in-law. really thought looking at it realistically felt we had a legitimate shot to win and that if i just worked incredibly hard, put the right team together, and i really felt strong that the message, which is true to who i am, resonated

with the voters in my area. i just went to work pounding the pavement. people who think you just need money to run for office and win, our campaign and victory, a great example that's not the case. while yes, we needed to raise money, ended up raising the least of the four major candidates in the race. without our field program and doing 225 community events, a lot of times very small events where we were meeting every single day, identified primary voters and taking every single question. without that there's no question we would not have won. really took a combination. >> then you came here. what are your committee assignments and what would you like to accomplish? >> foreign affairs committee and middle east subcommittee. it's a very boring committee, world is perfectly at peace, so there are never any issues. unfortunately, quite the opposite. which makes it very exciting but also very sobering knowing that

the decisions that one makes are going to have such enormous consequences. in addition to that i'm on the oversight and government reform committee, which too often does tend to unfortunately denigrate into a sort of partisan food fight. i guess you're not supposed to like one committee more than another, but i will admit i tend to prefer the foreign affairs committee more than the oversight and government reform. not that those issues themselves aren't less important, but unfortunately just the way the committees are structured, the foreign affairs committee seems to be more bipartisan in its approach in attempting to solve proble problems. on the oversight and government reform it does tend to be about scandals. >> what concerns constituents the most? >> generally i would say ever since the great recession, by far the economy and jobs. but you know, take a step back rather than specifically saying

it's the economy or it's job creation or it's education, i would put all of these in the same category of middle-class angst. i mean, i talked a moment ago how i was brought up to believe if you work hard, play by the rules you'll be able to get ahead and be what you want to be in life. i think there are a lot of people, a lot of the hard working american middle class that is really questioning that right now. even polls show a lot of people believe that their children will actually have a worse outcome in life than they have, which is really contrary to the american dream and the american spirit. so whether it is higher education affordability or access to the quality of education, wage fairness, all of these issues really do fall into the same category of a feeling that the american system that we all believe in is not working, that there's something broken about it right now that needs to be fixed. >> you've spoken about sort of the dual roles of a congressman,

of course legislating here in washington, but constituent work too. how do you find the balance between those two when you're going about your business? and those are both equally important. i have to say, if we were having this discussion a dozen years ago or 15 years ago, i would have underappreciated the importance of the constituent service side and what you do back in the district. being a state legislator was a great experience as far as that goes. they are both equally important. what i do here in the capitol in terms of hopefully voting right way on legislation and on policy, that is important, but similarly back in the district in helping a constituent with a critical issue -- because oftentimes when they're walking into your office, that's not the first place they went to. a lot of times it's the place of last resort. so both are very important and sometimes when the legislative part of it can get frustrating and seemed bogged down, you'll

have a real win. maybe it is just one person's life, but i can think of an elderly couple we saved thousands of dollars because of an inaccurate insurance payment. a couple walked into our state house office, nowhere to turn. they were incorrectly billed and this was a couple in their 80s had no ability to pay the charge and broke down crying when we were able to fix it. those were the kind of feel-good moments that don't necessarily happen every day on the legislative side. >> there is another large piece of it and that's fund raising. how big of a challenge is that for you? what do you think of the campaign finance system as it is now? >> let me be blunt and not very elegant in saying that the campaign finance system we have in america is insane. a patchwork of post-watergate reforms that largely worked for a certain period of time, then were chipped away by supreme court decisions first with

buckley versus vallejo and then most recently with citizens united has left us this campaign finance system in which you have to spend and raise too much money to run for office. you have to spend too much time doing it. i mean each and every single taxpayer employs me and pays my salary. each of us as taxpayers pay for all 535 members of congress. i would much rather the persons whether it is the most conservative member or the most liberal member work on legislation and policy and not have to spend so much time to raise money to run for office. but in a system we have in the u.s. that does not have public financing of elections since they are privately financed, that's what has to happen. also, when i was referencing the campaign system right now makes no sense and is broken, we have right now a system in which the individual who is running for office is capped in terms of the amount of contributions he can receive from one individual or

entity. but then some outside group can spend millions upon millions of dollars or some very super wealthy individual can just write a check and spend a huge amount of money. so that's sort of inequity in the system has kind of created a situation where we have the worst of both worlds. and it achieves absolutely nothing. i would say -- i'm very interested in believing fundamental campaign finance reform. i did so before i started elective office. only extent my opinion has changed, i feel more strongly about it now. >> tell us about your family, the rest of your family. who do you go home too. >> my wife and i have been married for ten years. we have a gorgeous daughter abby, who is 18 months and already has a defined

personality and did so from literally the first week she was born. also, my dad is still with us fortunately and spent a lot of time with him. he lives in my district. only 15, 20 minutes away. i see him quite a bit. and my one sib lincoln, who is also in politics. my brother. we campaigned every single day together. i joked during the campaign especially when more goal else was making a lot of attention supporting her, i say i have the most important person voting foe me and that is my brother. >> being a federal officer holder versus state is one more satisfying than the other? is one more challenging than the other?

tell us. >> they are more similar than dissimilar. the couple key differences, though, would be one around foreign affairs. sometimes a border dispute with maryland or new jersey. generally we have been okay the last couple of centuries. so the foreign affairs aspect of it, there is no analogy at the state level. number two is while i love being a state legislature and worked very hard to get there, the start of goosebumps moments that happen here are hard to compete with, whether it's being on the floor for the state of the union or when a foreign head of state addresses congress or meetings at the white house. i just had an important meeting last week at the white house on a very serious issue. those are moments where you have to stop and look back.

my first week i was here received a classified briefing on our fight against isis in iraq and syria from general allen. and for two hours, while there was nothing in and of itself surprising, i learned just the weight of what we were talk building and the gravity really does hit you in a way at this level that is unlike anything else i've done. >> you mentioned foreign affairs a couple of times. how do you keep up on issues? have you traveled much? how do you keep up on things and try to lead in the area of foreign affairs? >> traveling is something i would like to have an opportunity to do more of. i've been to israel recently. i went to dubai, united arab emirates. will be going to the middle east shortly, about a week from now. so that's important. it's been something i've been

interesting in. i'm interesting in international politics. not just our domestic politics but following the politics for other countries in addition to the national relations. fortunately i am doing something that i really love so it doesn't seem as much work because it tends to be what i do in my spare time anyway and that really helps. >> more about practical life on the hill. the scheduling can be complicated. whether it's bills, changes. things getting added, withdrawn. how do you keep up on what you are supposed to be voting on and how you are supposed to be voting on it on a day-to-day, hour-by-hour basis? >> that is when curve balls are thrown in terms of voting schedule. those are real challenges. the first friday night we were in late unexpectedly because the

bill to extend homeland security was defeated on the house floor. famous last words, 15 minutes before that vote i said, okay, i'm going to get on the road in probably a half hour. i'll be home tonight. i'll be able to see abby before you get her to bed. then i called a half hour later, are you watching c-span? are you watching tv? that plan has changed. there was a challenge in the state legislature. we were on the floor a lot. we cast a lot of votes. so by this point, i'm young, i'm experienced enough now. six years in the statehouse i am fairly used to it. it is one of the unfortunate aspects of the skwrofpblt especially when we end in session on a day unexpected. because you already planned things in the district and now you have to call and explain why you are not going to be there. they are more interested in

seeing you pack in the district. that was the case certainly when i was a state legislature. kind of like we were talking about before. i always tried to keep a hands-on approach. and something i feel strongly about. in a country of 310 million people and a world of thousands of tv channels, billions of web sites, it's easy for people who feel disconnected from their democracy. it's easy for people to feel, well, i don't matter, my voice isn't heard. i know when i'm showing up to an event or in a school, when i'm speaking to a group, there i am as the public face of the people's government. that's the way a representative democracy should work. i always feel if people come into constituent office and talk to me, or at an event, they will feel better about their deposit and in terms of being heard.

i know every single call in this office, i know what every single person is calling about and it gets to me. that is important. and i can't stress that enough. not just because it's the right thing to do. i think you will see people believe in democracy more and believe their government can tackle big problems when people are listening. >> is there one thing in this office that you want to point to that has special value to you? >> it's hard. as you can see, i have a sparsely decorated office six or seven months in. certainly my two degrees from notre dame and harvard. i was a die hard notre dame fan before i ever stepped on campus. that is from a picture that i took of glen colin hill in ireland, the town where my dad grew up. had i been smart enough to extend the camera a little bit further to the right, you would actually get the small house

that my dad grew up in. and then of course all the family photos. i really love the picture with vice president biden picking up my daughter abby. and a picture of my procedure and me and my dad at the white house when we were hosting march 17th. pretty special events. even know as i look over my shoulder, my mom's old crossing guard hat and my dad septa hat. it is not the nicely decorated office. the things that i do i have probably say a lot about who i am and what i value. >> and finally, if they'll have you, how long would you like to serve in the house and do you have aspirations beyond the house? >> i'm going to say something quite unpopular. i know there is a pretty bipartisan effort to criticize

and bash politics itself, the political system. that's been going on since the generation of our founding fathers. but i believe in public service. to wanting to study private policy, i looked at this as a profession. if the decisions of war and peace, while people can come through many walks of life, whether business, law, forming, media, whatever the case may be, these issues are very intricate. i see the value of the foreign affairs committee when i turn to a ranking member who has been there two decades and dealing with a complicated statutory issue in terms of a treaty we have, there is real value to having people study this and knowing what they're talking about. i take it quite seriously. i believe it doesn't necessarily have to be congress or office.

but i do want to be in the public arena my entire life. it is a noble profession even though some folks in office do their best to denigrate it and act in a way that doesn't shine it in the best light. that said, it is the best form of government except for all the others that have been tried. we better have people that are working together. at the end of the day i hope i can be someone who contributed positively and not negatively. >> thanks a lot for talking to us. >> thank you. on american history tv in primetime don't, looking back at the 1945 atomic bombings hiroshima and nagasaki. the moment in time.

and then two atomic bomb survivors. later, a discussion on japan's surrender to allied courses with a professor of military history and general is staff college. >> 70 years today, july 16th, 1945, the first atomic bomb was tested near los alamos. next on real america, the moment in time the manhattan project, a library of congress and lowe's al mows co production from the year 2000 which tells the story of the race to create the bomb. this hour-long documentary includes interviews with some of the key scientists and technicians.