Jeff Duncan Quotes

I speak for the people I represent, so yes, my voice is heard. One reason they elected me is that their own individual voices may not be heard.

I do not represent public opinion. I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public and the public’s opinion of those interests.

Approval ratings matter for politicians, largely for good reason. A leader with plummeting approval ratings ought to take note of the needs and hopes of his people.

We need to be constantly reminded that this is a representative democracy, and we need to be in tune to what people are talking about.

A new poll shows only 3 percent strongly approve of the job Congress is doing, with a margin of error of 4 percent, so it's possible that "less than no one" thinks they're doing a good job.

Is it not natural that a man who is a candidate for the favor of the people, and who is dependant on the suffrages of his fellow-citizens for the continuation of his public honors, should take care to inform himself of their dispositions and inclinations…? This dependant [creates] strong chords of sympathy between the Representative and the constituent.

Polls make leadership impossible.

It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them.

Burke said there were three estates in Parliament; but in the reporter's gallery yonder, there sat a fourth estate more important far than they all.

The Members of the Parliament shall be bound solely by their own conscience and not by any directions given by their electors.

Polling can undermine the ability of officials to lay out, debate, analyze, and implement their plans. By turning to instant [electronic] polls we would eliminate the captain and the officers and leave every shipboard decision to the passengers.

A man ain't got not right to be a public man, unless he meets the public views.

Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a President or any other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of the people.

Their ideas may contradict the sense of the whole people; hence the consequence that instructions are binding on the representative is of a doubtful, if not a dangerous nature.

In a democracy you [politicians] have to let the press and the people give you crap.

The influence of every mode of thinking which is shared by numbers ought to be felt in the legislature.

There is a character of mind which does not look up to any one; which thinks no other person's opinion much better than its own, or nearly so good as that of a hundred or a thousand persons like itself. Where this is the turn of mind of the electors, they will elect no one who is not or at least who does not profess to be, the image of their own sentiments, and will continue him no longer than while he reflects those sentiments in his conduct.

The great advantage of representatives is their capacity of discussing public affairs. For this, the people collectively are extremely unfit, which is one of the chief inconveniences of a democracy.

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me. While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is.

Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion can change the government practically just so much.

If the Election be made by the People in large Districts, there will be no danger of Demagogues.

By choice, polls validate the media’s filtered view of the world.

In most of the countries where the people don’t like their government, we are now allowed to ask whether people like their government.

The representative assembly (House of Representatives) ... should be in miniature an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them

The problem for a politician of listening to the people, is that they don’t always agree.