Mark Leibovich Quotes

Pushing gun control drives people [in my district] crazy, gay marriage, abortion, deficit spending.All of that stuff adds up to be a problem for Democrats.

In the first 50 years of the filibuster, it was used only 35 times. But the last Congress alone had 112 cloture motions filed, plus threats of more. This is the tyranny of the minority.

If you want to take my guns away from me, and you’re all for murdering fetuses, and love it when homosexuals marry each other, and want to give them kitchen appliances at their showers, and you’re for the poor, you’re a liberal. If you are against those perversions and for the rich, you’re a conservative. What could be simpler?

American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.

There's a reason that you hear something like 90 percent of our country wants universal background checks, but we can't get it passed legislatively. If we had a true representative democracy, 90 percent of our elected officials would want universal background checks.

Our Congress should stay in session all summer - camp out in D.C., and turn off the AC. Put on their stuffiest powdered wigs and sweat it out, until they give in and put their John Hancocks (and their Nancy Pelosis and their John Boehners) on at least one meaningful law that no one wants to repeal.

Democrats believe they can win at the ballot box by obstructing, and they would rather win the next election than move America forward.

While I have worked hard to bring folks to the middle to craft common-sense solutions to the many problems that confront our nation, Washington is mired in gridlock, gamesmanship and constant partisan bickering.

Texans don't want to sit back and watch Austin turn into Washington, D.C. State leaders in power keep forcing people to opposite corners to prepare for a fight instead of coming together to get things done.

I am appalled by the notion of cultural wars.

Aren't we at the point where the closer we get to chaos, the more concern that there should be about coming to the table and compromising with Democrats? This is not leadership. This is almost like dictatorship.

Today, I think the attitude is that governing is not necessarily good politics, and the result is that it's much more partisan and much more divided.

The GOP doesn't seem particularly afraid of being perceived as blocking reform, despite efforts by the Obama White House to establish that narrative.

A concrete agenda and landslide victory might not even guarantee a president his mandate in a capital as polarized as Washington.

President Barack Obama's administration sometimes finds itself at odds with members of Congress who oppose nearly everything the United Nations does on principle.

My viewpoint is the Senate is dysfunctional.

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

To be honest, I haven't seen much serious budget planning since the Republicans took control of the House after the 2010 elections and grabbed onto the Senate filibuster. It's not the White House's fault that John Boehner couldn't deliver on a bigger deal.

Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a certain divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but each other's motives. And our great parties have too often been far apart and untrusting of each other.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

Today, the culture wars and the constant skirmishes over the size and scope of the welfare state have convinced conservatives that the country’s direst enemies are not “subversive” foreigners, but homegrown liberals.

Reaching consensus has gotten harder. Today, a minority if the minority plays hostage politics. It’s all or nothing politics at its worst.

I once had considerable expectations from Congress, But since they adopted the fiery resolves of … Massachusetts, all hope of good from them has vanished

Overall, Congress is dysfunctional, partisan, and polarized, and it isn’t getting anything done. We need commissions to break out of divisive partisanship.

It is surprising how many Americans are politically distressed over issues that doesn’t even affect their lives. Gay marriage is an example I don’t understand. It doesn’t affect anyone when someone they do not know gets married.