Patricia Hewitt Quotes

Voters will not give you a chance to solve their problems if they think you don’t understand them.

My focus is on my constituents.

It's nice not to have to worry about constituents.

Almost any member of ours is more effective with his elected representatives than I am.

I really hate I being a congressman because all it is is constituent service.

The House Freedom Caucus has the same agenda today as it did yesterday, and that is to try to address the needs of each of our constituents, address the concerns the voters have been saying they have for a long time.

In the district I represent, I have to talk to everybody.

Does any of you believe that we can solve our country's problems in five years? That is why we do not have this nonsense of elections.

A Senate seat is a terrible thing to waste.

Politics is a choice of enemas. You're going to get it up the ass, no matter what you do.

Politicians must let voters know what they think about issues before the election. Judges should not.

The general assumption of the democratic process is that you identify candidates who come closest to you in terms of values and positions. The problem is many voters are never given the kind of information they need to make the decision.

We can’t change our government unless we change the people who run it.

You wouldn’t need term limits if these [political] jobs don’t pay anything.

Congress is afraid of the voters, and the voters are looking for leadership.

You can reform a political culture, but it’s a big lift. First, the voters would have to convince the legislators that they’re being watched by someone other than the lobbyists. Then they’d have to press for laws that would force a change of behavior, like nonpartisan redistricting and ethics reform. Then the voters would have to follow up, year after year, until the old guard was replaced by a whole new generation who went into politics with dreams of drafting serious legislation, rather than just bringing more stuff back into the district or, at worst, shaking down some landlord at the airport for a thousand bucks.

In politics, familiarity doesn't breed contempt. It breeds votes.

What the voters want to know is who is going to get out there, fight for them, and deal with the income gap that exists in the nation today.

Of the many ways in which Donald J. Trump is disrupting American politics, one of the most compelling is his disregard for the established rules of communicating with voters.

I'm an elected politician. If you don't agree with me, vote for somebody else.

The No. 1 thing I want a voter to think about when they see my name, or hear my name, is what I stand for, and what I want to do for them and their family while elected.

Democrats believe that when more people vote, it's not just good for our party; it's good for democracy.

If you don't register to vote, politicians don't really care about you: politicians aren't really caring about what you have to say, what you have to do, anything.

Americans feel frustrated, distanced, and disenfranchised from our elected government. We deserve more: a government in which we truly all have a voice.

You can't assume anything in politics. That's why every Saturday I walk around my district. I talk to the longshoremen in Charlestown. I listen to the people in East Boston and their concern on the airport noise. I walk down to the Star Market in Porter Square, and people tell me about meat prices.