Luis Gutierrez Quotes

Our Congress should stay in session all summer - camp out in D.C., and turn off the AC. Put on their stuffiest powdered wigs and sweat it out, until they give in and put their John Hancocks (and their Nancy Pelosis and their John Boehners) on at least one meaningful law that no one wants to repeal.

If immigration reform doesn't happen, that doesn't say good things about our democracy, that everybody wants it, but Congress couldn't pass it.

A massive immigration bill has no chance of becoming law.

Given the slow pace of Washington's bureaucracy, policymakers are often busy solving yesterday's problems. This rearview mirror approach afflicts Mr. Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress.

Congress is unable to do the work of the American people because too many politicians believe that compromise means capitulation.

Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.

You can see how dysfunctional this Congress is.

We've been sitting at the compromise table for a long time. We're just waiting for that cold chair to be warmed up by the Republican leadership. They still have time to do the right thing and be responsible. They just seem to be moving further and further away from it.

Congress doesn’t do comprehensive well.

Overall, Congress is dysfunctional, partisan, and polarized, and it isn’t getting anything done. We need commissions to break out of divisive partisanship.

I may sound naive, since everyone's decided the next two years are going to be all about 2016, but I look at what's happened over the years when there's been divided government. That's when we've done tax reform, that's when we've done entitlement reform - to move this economy forward on these big issues.

Technology has changed almost everything. One institution remains stubbornly anchored in the past. It's where I work - the United States Congress, a 19th Century institution using 20th Century technology to respond to 21st Century problems.

If immigration reform was easy, Congress would have dealt with it 15 years ago.

Congress seems to be very good at doing nothing.

We need Congress to do more than just engage in partisan games.

There's a lot of good, bipartisan legislation that passes in committee and then gets bottled up. As a businessman, it surprised me.

Like, for example, way back then,[George W.] Bush could have passed immigration reform, just like [Barack] Obama could have when he first came in. And both of them passed on it, so now they leave it for now.

[on compromise immigration bill] This is fundamentally flawed in its current form, and I would oppose it. We need bipartisanship, but we also need legislation that is compassionate. I’m not sure this is.

I hope that Republicans in the House and Mr. Cantor will embrace that as part of immigration reform.

It is my firm belief that it will be in the interests of the United States, especially our economic interests, to pursue comprehensive immigration reform.

Congress is more broken than ever. Congressman Will Hurd has quickly become part of the problem.

The mission of Border Patrol agents to protect the United States from harm is being impeded by a crisis Congress has the ability to fix, but as usual, chooses not to.

If Republicans and Democrats alike truly believe DACA should stay and be a permanent part of immigration reform, then they should use their elected power to make it so.

The Dream Act and the DISCLOSE Act, to name two, had majorities in both chambers during Obama's first term, but they were filibustered to death. They probably await a similar fate unless the filibuster is reformed.

While Congress repeatedly finds plenty of time to vote on resolutions of condemnation over border security, they've done virtually nothing to actually solve the problem.