Dale Bumpers Quotes

What Congress does is respond to pressures that are upon it.

You cannot rely on House or Senate staff to pass a piece of legislation for you, but if you have antagonized staff, they can block you.

Hardly a week goes by where somebody doesn't tell me that they won't support me unless I vote a certain way.

The lobbyists are a kind of permanent other government.

Senators today are shying away from casting controversial votes on the proposition of any single vote can lead to their defeat.

The Congress is a power-oriented party.

You cannot make elected officials … do what they will not do.

It used to be that your ability to become a chairman of a major committee depended on seniority, what you knew about the subject, and your skill as a legislator, and not it depends on how much money you raise for the party leadership.

To get Congress to do anything.

I noticed that the highly organized lobbies in Washington were producing results regardless of the justice or injustice of their demand.

If you can’t move the public, you can’t move the Congress.

You can't use tact with a Congressman! A Congressman is a hog! You must take a stick and hit him on the snout!

People who think the might in Washington can be persuaded, or corrupted if you will, by anything less than voters just doesn’t understand what its about and never will. They don’t know what Washington juice is made of.

Something is systemically wrong with Congress today, and it's money, the pursuit of money, the endless pursuit of money, the virtual hourly pursuit of money, either to finance the perpetual campaign or to maintain a certain standard of living.

I, of course, am not influenced by the television cameras, but some members are.

Priorities are set by legislators, regulators and industry interests. The consumer gets the left-overs.

Policy and politics are always mixed up.

It is in the committee that the dirty work is done ... away from the many-eyed scrutiny of the rest of Congress and the public ... special interest legislation usually originates in the committee room.

The political parties, or more accurately, the inner clique that controls them, select the candidates for whom the people vote. The candidates express the will of the party and not that of the people. The platforms of the contending parties are adjusted to trick the voters into balloting for their candidates.

There is little leadership or followership on the Hill.

The people never have and never will be able to understand how the will of a majority of the House of Representatives can be set aside by the judgment of a few men on a powerful committee.

It’s popular in Congress to vote for simplistic solutions to complex problems.

My deepest worry was that after you do all that begging, and after all those people give you all that money, how can you keep your independence? My experience in the State Legislature showed it can be done, but I never had to beg for $1 million.

I don’t know how to do what you have to do to get something out of a congressman.

The employment had no reference whatever to anything pending in Congress.