Paul H. Douglas Quotes

The oil and gas lobby, with the vast amount of money at its disposal, is, I believe, the most diabolical influence at work in the nation's capitol. It has for years succeeded in blocking the assignment of public-spirited members to the tax-writing committees of the House and Senate, and also intervened in the election of leaders and assistant leaders in both Houses.

Corporations write the legislation. They vote on the legislation. And they give advice on how to pass their bills.

They are one of the most profitable industries in the world, and they’re throwing money into Washington DC. They’re buying politicians.

Not since the gilded age has our politics been opened so wide to corporate contribution and donations from secret sources.

Until we make campaigns affordable, then we're going to have too many members of Congress out rattling the cup with special interest groups.

Most of the corruption in Albany is legal corruption, not illegal bribery. It comes from campaigns being funded by millionaires and corporations.

From campaign contributions to expensive perks paid for by special interests, wealthy donors and corporate special interests have increasingly been able to purchase influence and promote their agendas in Congress.

Barack Obama's large contributor was Goldman Sachs - same thing on the Republican side. If you go to both their conventions, you see the same lobbyists paying off both sides so they win either way.

All of our political parties are bought and paid for by corporate America, Wall Street, and the wealthy interests. The Republican Party more so, but the Democrats take their share of the loot, too.

Pete Wilson deregulated energy as a pay out to Enron, and we blamed Gray Davis.

Without putting the brakes on out-of-control campaign contributions from individuals and corporations - it will be business as usual, with 1 percent of Americans pulling the strings.

Obama/Romney, Romney/Obama - the most important election of our lifetime? Fact is they're all the same - bought and paid for with the same money. Ours is a country of the SuperPAC, by the SuperPAC, and for the SuperPAC.

Why, over her political career has Wall Street been a major - the major campaign contributor to Hillary Clinton? You know, maybe they're dumb and they don't know what they're going to get, but I don't think so.

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

But they are not going to take on Big Oil because Big Oil is very generous at campaign time, and this is all about the elections. They want to pretend that they are doing something meaningful.

In reality, everybody in Congress is a stand-in for some kind of lobbyist. In many cases it's difficult to tell whether it's the companies that are lobbying the legislators or whether it's the other way around.

What we have now is a situation where politicians get a whole bunch of money from mainly business interests. Then once they hold that office, they spend all their time in office paying back over and over again those campaign contributions through various favors and contracts and that sort of thing.

I'm convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials.

The problem is we have a Wall Street-to-Washington access of power that has controlled the political climate. The donor class feeds the political class who does the dance that the donor class wants. And the result is federal government keeps getting bigger.

The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets.

America has the best congress money can buy.

Special interests and Congress are too closely connected and the ties that bind are the millions spent on campaigns.

Money in politics leads to bad things—and I am bipartisan in that view.

Tom Delay is a bag man for cigarette companies.

While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.