Henry Hyde Quotes
... government by commission is a boon to all members of Congress, who cringe at facing no-win situations.... It gets the job done.
Henry Hyde, U. S. Congressman (Republican, IL), Quoted in New York Times, January 29, 1989
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Louis had maintained that the earmark was a cowardly and corrupt way of a congressman bringing pork back to their districts and paying back campaign contributors. He argued that if what the Congressmen were doing were right, why not introduce a bill publicly, debate it, defend it, and try to get a majority for it rather than sneak it in some large piece of legislation without anyone knowing who even introduced the legislation or got the pork into the bill.
Paxon himself was one of the ‘whips’ responsible for doing this for the Republicans when he was in the Congress.
This is especially true in the Senate, where there not only is the filibuster available to the minority but there are “holds” where a single senator can anonymously stop certain processes such as conformations of appointments and a number of other arcane techniques allowed by Senate rules.
This quotation is a classic example of the type of deal making that President Johnson commonly engaged in.
She was shot in the head in a mass shooting which killed one of her closest staff members, She made a remarkable recovery and rehabilitation but decided to resign so she could devote her energy to her rehabilitation. After Congress she did that and gave her effort to Americans for Responsible Solutions, an organization to try and reduce mass shootings.
Referring to the 98% reelection rate of congressional incumbents:
as a result of the Watergate hearings and investigations and proceedings
The reason that this quote is important is that during the time that Graham served in the Senate, most of his Republican colleagues had evolved a political style where they just criticized everything the Democrats did or advocated. They would outdo each other to characterize problems more dramatically. They would even vote against legislation that they had supported earlier and in some cases, that they had even sponsored. They generally never made any specific suggestions or offered specific legislative options as once they did, there would be something that some might criticize them for. The tactic was reasonably effective in the short run, but a few Republicans, like Graham, felt that it was their duty to try and legislate solutions to national problems and not just uncover, describe or harp on what is a problem and attack Democrats.
Henry John Hyde was an American politician who served as a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 2007, representing the 6th District of Illinois, an area of Chicago's northwestern suburbs. He was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee from 1995 to 2001, and the House International Relations Committee from 2001 to 2007. He is most famous for writing the Hyde Amendment, as a vocal abortion opponent.
