Bill Shorten Quotes

I'm the first South Asian woman to be elected to the House of Representatives.

I remember saying to the chairman after serving the first year, 'Why are we doing this? Why don't the Hawaiians have control?' 'Well, we have no mechanism to do it,' I was told.

I look forward to the day when there are more women politicians accepted in their own right and not as 'women politicians.'

I didn't have any Indigenous friends until I was in my 30s, and I'll always remember and be inspired by the remarkable friendship I had with Connie Bush, an outstanding Indigenous leader from Groot Eylandt on who was on the National Women's Advisory Council with me.

In 2006, I entered the presidential palace in the main square of La Paz as the first indigenous president of Bolivia. Our government, under the slogan 'Bolivia Changes,' is committed to ending the colonialism, racism and exclusion that many of our people lived under for many centuries.

As an indigenous leader from Bolivia, I know what exclusion looks like. Before 1952, my people were not allowed to even enter the main squares of Bolivia's cities, and there were almost no indigenous politicians in government until the late 1990s.

If you want to join the Republican party, they have to let you in. There's nothing they can do about it. I mean, if Republicans will take Al D'Amato, they'll take anybody.

I have been a lot of 'firsts' on the national political stage, including the first African American congressman from the Bay Area and one of the first Democratic Socialists in Congress.

Even the Republicans themselves have acknowledged they have a diversity problem. If you look at their autopsy report following the 2012 election, they have specifically said they would continue to lose presidential elections unless they address the problem that they have with their alienation of minority groups.

Muslims, like most other voters, don't just want 'one of their own,' they want someone who best represents their values.

I see people like me, who thought someone like me couldn't be in politics, now are saying, 'Oh, wait, I don't need to take money from corporations to run. Maybe I'll run, too.'

I was the first Latino member of Congress to support Senator Obama's candidacy. For quite a while, I was the only one.

One of the reasons why the personnel of U.S. politics are more diverse is that - unlike the U.K. - one can compete for the top job without spending long years, or any years, in the nation's legislature.

I think it's important that we have different perspectives. We need more diversity in Congress.

In the Independent Group, we have the seeds of a new political movement that can reinvent our broken politics and provide a home to people who are politically homeless.

Canadians haven't always seen themselves in our party.

It's not enough just to elect people of color and women of color and progressives. We need to make sure that they have a work plan and that they are - continue to align with the communities that helped get them to where they're at.

We can't just assume that this resistance is going to produce the kinds of candidates or the kinds of parties that will truly honor people of all colors, all backgrounds, all ethnicities, from every nation and every faith and every gender, unless we do the work in our own communities of organizing and being in deep dialogue with one another across all forms of difference. It's my hope that we'll seize this opportunity and not let the moment pass.

Every Harvard class should have one Democrat to rescue it from oblivion.

The Democrats have got to open the door to young people. Welcome them in and understand that it will be messy, that many young people are not professional politicians. The Democratic Party is going to have to adjust itself to their reality, rather than force young people to be adjusted to the Democratic leadership's reality.

[Proportional representation is a] device for defeating democracy, the principle of which was that the majority should rule, and for bringing faddists of all kinds into Parliament, and establishing groups and disintegrating parties.

There's good reason to be excited. You have the first woman running who is qualified, and a very attractive African-American who has demonstrated crossover appeal. I got involved in politics 40 years ago during the civil rights movement, so yes, it's an exciting thing.

I am deeply gladdened that 1993 has been delcared the International Year of Indigenous Peoples by the United Nations. It is the first year we have had in five hundred years. This is thanks to the struggle of many untitled, unnamed indigenous brothers who, without understanding international law, patiently walked the corridors asking for some time. Thanks to them this international year has been declared.

I have supported candidates whose views are very different than mine on the need the break up Wall Street banks, on the war in Iraq, on trade issues. Of course I have supported those people. My hope is that we're going to see - and I believe it is the case - we're going to see more and more strong progressives running for office. That's my hope. That's my desire. But that is up to - that decision is going to be made by people in 50 states and 435 congressional districts.

There are a lot of idiots in this country, and they deserve representation as much as the next man.