Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes

If the Congress fails then American democracy is dysfunctional.

I've been in the legislative branch and now the executive branch and in each case I felt it was important we use our constitutional responsibilities to the fullest.

Government is not a bottom line enterprise. You can get yourself elected ... but you can't fire the legislature if they won't do what you want.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

Most decisions involving the way that Americans live their lives are not made in the courts.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

The growth of constitutional government, as we now understand it, was promoted by the establishment of two different sets of machinery for making laws and carrying on government.

In my day, the president ruled with authority before the law, but now all that is lost.

I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.

The presidency is the most visible thread that runs through the tapestry of the American government. More often than not, for good or for ill, it sets the tone for the other branches and spurs the expectations of the people.

It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.

Voters cannot hold officials responsible if they do not know what government is doing, or which parts of government are doing what.

In our Constitution governmental power is divided among three separate branches of the national government, three separate branches of State governments, and the peoples of the several States.

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

The federal courts do not sit as an ombudsman, refereeing the disputes between the other two branches.

Government is as unreal, as intangible, as unapproachable as God. Try it, if you don't believe it. Seek through the legislative halls of America and find, if you can, the Government. In the end you will be doomed to confer with the agent

You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.

The actual form of our present government is simply a scheme of Congressional supremacy.

I have grave concerns that the CIA search may have violated the separation of powers principle embodied in the United States Constitution.

Traditionally, in America, we have accountability as kind of a key feature of each branch of government in some way. So, you know, you obviously have to run for office. Or if you're a judge, you've got to be nominated by political officials and so on.

I took an oath to protect the Constitution, and protecting the Constitution means not letting the president bypass the separation of powers.

I grew up when 'Schoolhouse Rock' taught millions of American kids how a bill becomes a law.

We've got to have a functioning government.

I hope that the American public understands that we have three levels of government. We have the (unintelligible) the executive, but there's legislative and the judicial, and the legislative obviously need to be just doing their job.