James Callaghan Quotes

The immigration bill is going to pass. We're going to have a bill. It's going to get through the Senate. I think the fundamentals are there and the foundation is strong and the bill is going to happen. The House is going to be trickier, but I think it's going to happen there too.

Constitutionally, a revising chamber is useful and important. The first occasion I know of in history when the Lords fulfilled this role was in 1539 when Henry VIII's act of proclamations was neutered by their lordships so effectively that the Act was repealed in 1547.

I have never pretended to be a great House of Commons man, but I pay the House the greatest compliment I can by saying that, from first to last, I never stopped fearing it.

The house of Lords must be the only institution in the world which is kept efficient by the persistent absenteeism of most of its members.

We know the legislation that passed the House. It was the worst piece of legislation frankly against working class people that I can remember in my political life in the Congress.

I think [Donald Trump] s got the votes for [tax reform]. I think he's definitely has the Republican votes for it, in House and Senate, and I think he probably has maybe 20 percent of the Democratic vote for it. So he could get it done with a bipartisan majority.

You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.

My strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done.

The House of Commons is called the Lower House, in twenty Acts of Parliament; but what are twenty Acts of Parliament amongst Friends?

With the greatest respect, we do not make the criminal law on the basis of opinion polls. A majority of 9:1 could be in favour of a ban in my constituency, but I would not regard that as conclusive, and I hope that we never would. If we start having opinion polls about all the unpleasant and distasteful habits and customs of some members of society, and suggesting that their findings should be made part of the criminal law, foxhunting would come way down the list, and quite a lot of strange enactments would have to go through the House.

Obamacare is a crime against democracy because a material part of that bill was not disclosed to the Senate nor to the House of Representatives. The funding was hidden in the bill. That was fraud and I can't vote for any budget that fails to bring back that money from Obamacare.

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?" "They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

I introduced bill saying we need more security, we need more scrutiny. Once again, Marco [Rubio] opposed this. So Marco can't have it both ways. He thinks he wants to be this, "Oh, I'm great and strong on national defense." But he's the weakest of all the candidates on immigration. He is the one for an open border that is leaving us defenseless.

You see, that's the whole point of being in government. If you don't like something you simply make up a law that makes it illegal.

The last thing members of the committee want to do is pass legislation.

Another advantage accruing from this ingredient in the constitution of a senate, is the additional impediment it must prove against improper acts of legislation. No law or resolution can now be passed without the concurrence first of a majority of the people, and then of a majority of the states.

During the last 100 years, the House of Lords has never contributed one iota to popular liberties or popular freedom, or done anything to advance the common weal; but during that time it has protected every abuse and sheltered every privilege.

The only reason the House hasn't done even more damage is that the Senate often sands down the most noxious ideas, making the bills merely bad, not disastrous.

In my view it is time to pass a good bill, a fair bill, a comprehensive bill ... Too many have been waiting too long for fairness.

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

It is doubtful that congress would pass the Bill of Rights if it were introduced today.

I think health care reform is challenging and challenged. We will see what happens, but this is a difficult topic that touches every American family. And the more members of the Senate and the House both know about it, I think the harder it is to reach that conclusion you would like to get to.

The Senate was the equivalent of an aristocracy at the beginning. Senators were not even elected; they were appointed in the early days. Then that changed, and senators did become elected. But the Senate is designed to slow down out-of-control, madcap activity elsewhere in the legislative branch (i.e., in the House), and the 60-vote rule was part of that.

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

I thought that conclusion that we leaped to right after the election, that has been disproven statistically so many times, I don't know why Republicans would advocate that advocating for comprehensive immigration reform is somehow a political solution for the Republicans losing a percentage of Hispanics. I probably have less appetite for this than either the Senate or colleagues in the House, certainly the Democrats and most likely members of the Republican Conference. They are still wrestling with trying to get their education up to a level where they can actually advocate for policy.