Hillary Clinton Quotes

Even the country's first president chafed at the limits placed on him by the writers of the U.S. Constitution. From the nature of the Constitution, ... I must approve all the parts of a bill, or reject it in toto.

Our Founding Fathers created the Executive Branch to implement and enforce the laws written by Congress, and vested this power in the president.

You run Washington DC though the House. The Senate gets in the way. The President gets in the way.

The Founders of this Nation entrusted the lawmaking power to the Congress alone in both good and bad times … the President's power to see that the laws are faithfully executed refutes the idea that he is to be a law-maker.

In the government of this Commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: The executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: The judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.

The President … does not originate laws or resolutions; he takes no part in the deliberations on them during their progress; he does not act in relation to them indirectly by advice or interference of any sort, until they have passed both houses: it is only when their operations are concluded that his power begins.

It has been the judiciary that has preserved the Constitution rather than the other two separated powers.

The filibuster is the most important check on raw Presidential power.

People assume that the executive branch has more power than it actually has. Only the legislative branch can create the laws; the executive branch cannot create the laws. So, if the executive branch tries to create a branch one side or the other... you go back to the founders of the nation. They set up a system that ensures that it doesn't happen.

I think executive orders with Donald Trump would be a very blunt instrument with respect to the Constitution.

When it comes to the separation of powers, the Constitution makes it look pretty simple: Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them and the judiciary adjudicates them. In reality, though, the lines between the branches are a little blurrier than they seem on paper.

Our Constitution wisely assigns both joint and separate roles to each branch of the government; and a President and a Congress who hold each other in mutual respect will neither permit nor attempt any trespass.

I have a great deal of concern for any president and the amount of power they accumulate versus congress. I'm a stickler about the idea of separation of powers.

What do we do with a president who can basically change what Congress passed by attaching a letter saying I don't agree with this part or that part?

The veto is a President's Constitutional right, given to him by the drafters of the Constitution because they wanted it as a checkagainst irresponsible Congressional action. The veto forces Congress to take another look at legislation that has been passed. I think this is a responsible tool for a president of the United States, and I have sought to use it responsibly.

It seems with every new day, we have a new veto threat from the president.

In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment.

Today, the most important political instrument in the hands of the opposition is the presidential veto.

The authority to declare war rests in Congress, not in an out-of-control president.

I've been in the legislative branch and now the executive branch and in each case I felt it was important we use our constitutional responsibilities to the fullest.

Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly has been disturbed over what he sees as the erosion of presidential powers since the Watergate scandal and has urged Bush to take a stronger stand against what Cheney sees as congressional intrusions into the executive branch.

I wish I could set deadlines for the Congress, but that's just not the way the Constitution is written.

Separation of powers means that the president cannot control Congress.

If our forefathers had wanted Congress to be the Commander in Chief, they would have said so.

The framers of the Constitution did not entrust this House with the power to impeach the President of the United States in order to establish this body as a court of personal morality.