Claire McCaskill Quotes

The imperial Presidency requires a passive Congress.

We can’t have 535 Secretaries of State.

[Congress is] the chief aggrandizer of the Executive.

The Congress is getting too powerful.

As the Texas Attorney General I saw it every day: the struggle for power between the legislative branch and the executive branch.

We have moved toward a kind of scorpions-in-a-bottle Government where you have two branches [executive and legislative] that don't understand many of the legitimate needs of the other branch.

Legislative power is always superior to the executive.

There is unquestionably some advantage, in a country like America, where no apprehension needs be entertained of a coup d'etat, in making the chief minister constitutionally independent of the legislative body, and rendering the two great branches of the government, while equally popular both in their origin and in their responsibility, an effective check on one another.

The Senate, in my poor opinion, is little if any check, either on the President or the House of Representatives. It has not the disposition. The members of both Houses are creatures, which, though differently born, are begotten in the same way and by the same sire. They have of course the same temper. But their opposition, were they disposed to make any, would be feeble. They would easily be borne down by the other House, in which the power resides. The President can indeed do what he pleases, provided always it shall please him to please those, who lead a majority of the Representatives.

I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won.

The biggest downside [for the President] of having the other party control a branch of the Congress is its ability to use investigations and subpoenas as anvils.

The White House staff [under Richard Nixon] viewed Congress in much the same way that the chairman of the board of a huge corporation regards his regional sales managers.

All presidents get frustrated with Congress.

We are a Republic with different branches of government, and so the Senate and the House are going to be full partners in working with the White House.

There's a lot of bipartisan rancor, a lot of excessive delegation of legislative power from the legislative branch to the executive branch.

There's value in checks and balances. And there's value in having independence in the governor's office with respect to the legislature.

Every once in a while, the Senate seems to remember that it belongs to a coequal branch.

The thing is that we live in a presidential system with a parliamentary constitution. Congress has a lot of weight in Brazil, and the president cannot always do when he wants; he does what he can.

I took an oath to protect the Constitution, and protecting the Constitution means not letting the president bypass the separation of powers.

The American political system is based on the president taking the initiative and Congress responding. With President Trump, it's been the opposite.

While the seeming independence of the federal judiciary has played a vital part in making its actions virtual Holy Writ for the bulk of the people, it is also and ever true that the judiciary is part and parcel of the government apparatus and appointed by the executive and legislative branches.

There can only be one government, and the president has certain roles and duties, which are to hold the second key on money and on people but not to go and check the government or tell the government what it is supposed to do.

The bedrock principle of separation of powers ought to be upheld regardless of the (D) or (R) that rests behind a given president's name.

I will continue to ask the president and his subordinates to work with Congress rather than against it.

There is an important role for a United States senator as a check and balance on the president of the United States.