Mike Mansfield Quotes

Congress should get the job done.

Amendments occupy a great deal of most legislators' time, particularly those lawmakers in the minority. Members of Congress do author major bills, but more commonly they make minor adjustments to the bigger bill.

That's the mantra I use when the team tells me something is too complicated. People keep saying, 'We need more prioritization.' I say, 'Guys, what you want is less work. And that is not going to happen.'

A lot of times I make people better by getting stupid, distracting, bureaucratic stuff off their desk. That's an incredibly easy way to make a senior person more productive.

We’ve got to end the 3 day work week.

What Congress needs is a trochar.

The Knesset is the parliament that passes the most laws in the world. It's a disaster for the business sector.

Those who obstruct the Senate should pay a price in public notoriety and physical exhaustion. That would lead to a significant decline in frivolous filibusters.

I never envisioned retiring out of the Congress.

Congress is corrupt, gridlocked, broken, dysfunctional. It's not working and we need it working again. It's not going to get fixed by people who are deeply, in one way or another, inside this really broken system.

Paul Ryan wants his weekends free? Fine - let's give him all 365 days free.

My son Emilio is running for Congress to continue the fight for social justice.

I have a concentrated period of work for about five months, and then I take a bunch of time off. That's just the way I work.

My purpose is to call on my colleagues, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, to get behind the agenda of trying to reform the government and make it work for the people rather than the other way around.

To be effective in Congress, you must focus. With so many issues and debates occurring at any given time, it is easy to spread yourself too thin and lose sight of your goal.

My name is Kevin de Leon, and I am the president of the most progressive legislative house in America.

We work the full year round to make 10 or 12 episodes, and 'The Good Wife' makes, like, 26 in that time or something, which I can't believe. I don't know how they do it.

Logically, a Congress-led government looks difficult.

Running for Congress isn't something I ever thought I would do.

I think Paul Ryan would make a great speaker. And people like him are the kinds of people that we need.

The Dream Act and the DISCLOSE Act, to name two, had majorities in both chambers during Obama's first term, but they were filibustered to death. They probably await a similar fate unless the filibuster is reformed.

Most of what I've proposed in Congress grew out of issues raised with me back here in Connecticut.

Lawmakers need to be better stewards of policy and update it, not just keep adding on top of old laws.

Our country and our Congress face many difficult challenges.

Bringing in timely laws that are the need of the hour requires nimbleness to get through the necessary legislative processes.