Thomas S. Foley Quotes

The Rules Committee is the place that Democracy comes to die.

Democracy is not about one party dominating.

The debates of that great assembly are frequently vague and perplexed, seeming to be dragged rather than to march, to the intended goal. Something of this sort must, I think, always happen in public democratic assemblies.

The people never have and never will be able to understand how the will of a majority of the House of Representatives can be set aside by the judgment of a few men on a powerful committee.

I can't strong-arm my members. They vote the way they want to.

The wisdom and discretion of Congress ... are the restraints on which the people must often rely solely, in all representative governments

Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking heads, but the principle is exactly the same... The minority gives way not because it is convinced that it is wrong, but because it is convinced that it is a minority.

The history of Congress shows that once parliamentary tools become big enough obstacles for the majority party, they are abolished or reformed.

Being Speaker of the House is a really tough spot.

The Senate of the United States has been both extravagantly praised and unreasonably disparaged, according to the predisposition and temper of its various critics…. The truth is, in this case as in so many others, something quite commonplace and practical. The Senate is just what the mode of its election and the conditions of public life in this country make it.

Voters do not decide issues. They decide who will decide issues.

[Describing how Congress functions:] ... the way the Founding Fathers intended—not very well. They understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the majority.

We demand that the House of Representatives shall again become a deliberative body, controlled by the majority of the people's Representatives and not be the Speaker ...

Governments propose, and oppositions dispose.

The President ... should be merely the executor of a power of decision that rests elsewhere; that is, in the Congress.

Being Speaker [of the House] is hard work.

In all legislative assemblies, the greater the number composing them may be, the fewer will be the men who will in fact direct their proceedings.

As the House is designed to provide a reflection of the mood of the moment, the Senate is meant to reflect the continuity of the past—to preserve the delicate balance of justice between the majority’s whims and the minority’s rights.

There is one thing, too apt to be forgotten, which it much behooves us to remember: In the Colonies, as everywhere else in this world, the vital point is not who decides, but what is decided on!

A government may only govern so long as the people, through their representatives, vote it the money to carry on.

Consensus is the essence of the legislative process.

A majority of senators should be able to adopt rules at the beginning of each Congress.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

The practical core of democracy, defined functionally, is the peaceful exchange of power between different groups of powerful political players arranged in parties.

The Senate is a remarkable institution. It is unique. There is no other body, no other political body, no other democratic legislature in the world quite like the U.S. Senate.