Jess Phillips Quotes

Devolution [decentralization of government] cannot stop at the State House. It must go down to City Hall.

I hope that we increasingly shift power to local governments.

I think it is time for a radical federalism in this country, where people trust innovation coming from the local level and ramp that up.

There's much more we can be doing in Parliament, we could be giving more power back to people at local government level, through local referendums.

That's what I think regions are about, making central government more accountable and fairer.

Let us put the normal divisions of politics aside. Let us come together as one country; let us seize this historic moment to shift the balance of power from the corridors of Westminster to the streets and communities of Scotland.

The more responsibility you can move toward local government, the better of you're going to be … City governments do better than their State governments in terms of accountability.

With much care and skill power has been broken into fragments in the American township, so that the maximum possible number of people have some concern with public affairs.

The Empire is built up on free trade... your Empire is founded on the condition, and it could not have existed until now except on that condition, that every self-governing part of it shall have the right to work out its own prosperity by its own methods.

13 years after Indonesia began devolving power from the federal government to hundreds of sub provincial units, the link between local and national political interests have become extremely tenuous… although locally elected politicians may be delivering things that people want in their own back yards, they are not, collectively meeting the nation’s needs.

In the space of just 18 months from 1999 to 2001, one of the world’s most centralized nations [Indonesia] burst apart to become one of its most decentralized.

Conservatives believe in patriotism, but equally in community and the importance of local identity. We believe in devolution. We believe in localism. We believe that decisions should be taken locally wherever is practical; that communities matter.

If we as a party are serious about devolution, then we must respect councils and nations enough to determine their own agenda.

A strong devolved government is vital so that we have proper local decision-making, helping to strengthen the economy and build a more united community.

We are entering an era in which national government, instead of directing, enables powerful regional and local initiatives to work, where Britain becomes as it should be - a Britain of nations and regions.

To involve young people and make sure that the system is more relevant to them in Scotland, we have a clear obligation to implement a policy of home rule.

I want to see far more decisions taken far closer to the patients, the passengers and the pupils. Far more power for locally and regionally elected politicians who understand best the needs of their areas. And far more say too for the dedicated staff at all levels in health and education.

We won't enshrine the Tories' policies in Scotland. We won't run away from the Tories but then let them run our economy. We will face up to the Tories, and we will beat them.

A majority in all parties do, I think, want to see local government recover its old vigour and independence.

I think a lot of things could be handled locally.

To enable consensus politics to develop we need to empower people where they live. This means devolving financial resources and political power down to the community level. One of the greatest blocks to movement is fear. This fear can only be removed when people feel their voices are being heard by government and when they have a say in their own lives and communities.

Perhaps democracy should be begun at the local level first. America was many local democracies before democracy came to the national level.

Quite as serious an error [of the French] is the failure to provide for local self-government. As this lies at the bottom of republican institutions, and should be, moreover, the first concern of democracy

The value of democracy lies in the fact that good or bad government has its roots in the localities where people know each other and where they account for their actions to their neighbors.

… far from making one single Republic, this land has reverted to a state of many little republics of towns and localities.