Joe Arpaio Quotes

In a sense, the police power is but another name for the power of government.

The fate of this government depends absolutely upon raising it above the state governments.

I am not a federal employee. I am a constitutional officer. My job is the Constitution of the United States, I am not a government employee. I am in the Constitution.

Of the powers conferred upon the General Government by the Constitution of the United States much the most important are those given to the legislative body.

I think the federal government should be doing only what the Constitution says it should be. We don't have authority under the federal Constitution to have a big federal criminal justice system.

We need to make clear the federal government does not have authority to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process or, for that matter, to use lethal force on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they don't pose imminent threats.

The Obama administration came into Utah and said, 'We're not going to listen to what the U.S. Supreme Court said. 'We, the federal government, are going to recognize marriages in the state of Utah and Utah state law explicitly does not recognize as marriage,' and that was really, in my view, an abuse of power.

If you have a federal government that's not enforcing the law and does not preserve the integrity of its own borders, then naturally, states are going to take matters into their own hands.

The Democrats have come right out and said it: the power of the central government shall have no limits at all.

Many civil rights came about, not when they were passed into law, but because the federal government did what it should and saw them enforced.

The government has the right to change laws and rules and regulations.

The current situation [in Washington DC] will shortly and irresistibly tempt the Congress to reassert federal control over the nation's capital city. If the mayor [Marion Barry] can't restore order, the federal government must.

Where in the Constitution does it give the federal government the right to be involved with crime control to begin with.

What we had to do was to make it more dangerous for the federal government not to enforce federal law.

Our whole history tells us that the national government has been far less corrupt and incompetent than state and local government … Time and time again the federal government has had to rescue people from the states and local governments. If we left it to the states, we would still have slavery.

Many states have legalized medicinal marijuana. I believe the president and the Department of Justice ought to respect the will of these separate states... We are capable of self-government. We don't need some federal gendarme to come and tell us what to do. I believe comity toward the states...ought to govern the policy.

no court has ever authorized what the government now seeks, no law supports such unlimited and sweeping use of the judicial process, and the Constitution forbids it.

The duty imposed upon him [the president] to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose; and without it, be the form of government whatever it may, it will be utterly worthless for offence or defense; for the redress of grievances or the protection of rights; for the happiness, or good order, or safety of the people.

Since my election as Oklahoma attorney general in 2010, I have been a proud member of a group of federalism-minded state attorneys general who have methodically, indeed relentlessly, worked to restore the proper balance of power between the federal government and the states.

I start with a concern about the growth of federal government. I start with a perspective concerned about the growth of that power, and containing it within the bounds of the Constitution.

We don't want the federal government coming in and telling us how to do our environmental remediation or how we're going to do our healthcare.

Wringing your hands about states' rights, forget it. They're gone. Basically, the federal government can do whatever it wants. Who's going to protect the states? My court? Ha - we're feds!

I'm the elected sheriff, and I'm going to keep doing what the Constitution says I can do.

We have become bound by a political straitjacket that frames every debate: Too much federal government. Yet our forefathers forged this system for us. The federal government can accomplish what the states, acting alone or even in concert, cannot.

Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property.