Elise Stefanik Quotes

What I was excited about was the opportunity for punters to be part of politics. The whole idea was to allow the voices of people outside this weirdo palace of Westminster to be heard. I thought the whole social media thing might be really positive.

If millions of Americans choose to weigh in on the outcome of 'American Idol' through text messages and the Web, then why not harness similar technological tools to encourage discourse on the political landscape?

And I think that every American - this is an all-hands-on-deck moment for America. And I think it is good and important that every American is informed, understands the issues and whether I agree with them or not, comes into the public forum and we hear from them.

Harnessing new communications technology offers one promising way to make public participation easier and more effective.

Industrial capitalism brought representative democracy, but with a weak public mandate and inert citizenry. The digital age offers a new democracy based on public deliberation and active citizenship.

The way to get people civically engaged, not just during the election but throughout the year, is to tap into Facebook and let them do it with their friends.

Through a blog, an ordinary citizen such as myself can use the Internet, this thing invented by Albert Gore, to talk from my house to the U.S. capital and to make use of my right to point out to government officials and to the media when they are wrong.

We need to find a way to empower citizens to make governments take notice.

The good news, though, is that I find in my political travels that people, as regular citizens, are more interested than ever in getting together and having discussions. They want to hear about other viewpoints that differ entirely from what the administration is putting out.

Few Americans have ever met their Congresspeople. They don't see them at the grocery store; they don't meet them at the bowling alley. They're more likely to see their representatives in photographs from the Daily Grill in Washington, D.C., than at a local town hall.

I think Twitter will be a fundamental part of how people interact with their government.

Politics in America is moving from representative politics to interactive politics.

When somebody contributes to a campaign, that is democracy at work.

Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for president. One hopes it is the same half

Government has got to open up and engage citizenry as partners.

We have to take our democracy back. We cannot leave it to Facebook or Snapchat or anyone else. We have to take democracy back and renew it. Society is about people and not about technology.

You know the voice of the people is a very, very powerful tool.

When we embraced social media, we took more control of the Newark narrative. We increased responsiveness toward residents. We drew more of our constituents in to participate in government and improve our cities.

Democracy is stronger, is better, is more robust when people participate. We should want to encourage that.

The rise of civic society is not a negation of politics, but marks an opportunity for the involvement of the people.

I want people to feel like they have access to Congress, that they have access to government.

The stakes ... are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

People should organize people to just turn up and participate in the democratic process. Knock on doors. They may not be old enough to register to vote, but they can urge their teachers, their parents, their grandparents, their mothers, their fathers, and others to get out and vote.

Connectivity is important to our state, including the opportunity for our citizens to see our legislative process at work.

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.