Mark Meadows Quotes

Sometimes you hear that many politicians vote for a bill in various forms before they vote against it, or vice versa. The conflict, negotiation, and eventual compromise involved in this process form the essence of the democratic process.

Promise all that is asked and more if you can think of anything. Offer to build a bridge or a church, to divide a county, create a batch of new offices, make a turnpike, or anything they like. Promises cost nothing, therefore deny nobody who has a vote.

Quite obviously power will continue to play a central role in global politics as it always does. But usually there is something else.

Pure politics is merely the calculus of combinations and of chances.

I did look for compromise. I worked in a bipartisan way.

What's going on in the Senate is kind of a politics of escalation. We're getting sort of like the Mideast: pay back everybody when you're in charge.

Politics means competition, especially in senior positions. If you don't know that, you're not especially suited to politics.

I sure tried to help deliver compromise, consensus, bipartisanship.

If you look through history, all of the great work we've done in Congress has been around a table of compromise, when it comes to the most difficult problems.

In the end, I think part of my problem was that I was a better legislator than I was a politician.

All legislation of any consequence is a compromise. You have to recognize that.

All government—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act,—is founded on compromise and barter.

Nearly all legislation is the result of compromise.

All legislation is founded upon the principle of mutual concession.

Do you know what it takes to get a good piece of legislation passed ... one that everyone agrees on? The egos. The turf battles.... It's incredible.

Politicians trim and tack in their quest for power, but they do so in order to get the wind of votes in their sails.

If you vote no, you don't go. [The compromise passed.]

The Congress is the place where ordinary mortals go about the business of compromise—of compromise that gets us through the day.

Single out a few of the most vital points, agree on them absolutely and then work for those alone.

In the final analysis, politics is a game of force, in which no weakling may expect to be assigned a conspicuous role.

The T. and P. folks are working hard on their bill. … They offered one M. C. one thousand dollars cash down, five thousand when the Bill passed and ten thousand of the bonds when they got them, if he would vote for the Bill.

Our hope is that an omnibus bill is put together so we can work through our friends on the leadership staff to insert the language at the very end of the process, instead of working through the normal appropriations process—which involves too many people and could jeopardize our legislative fix.

I hate to tell you, but it's not always pretty up there on Capitol Hill

If you’re the majority party, you want to use dollars to buy votes. Ideology is not relevant.

Legislation is the art of compromise.