Debbie Wasserman Schultz Quotes

While I have worked hard to bring folks to the middle to craft common-sense solutions to the many problems that confront our nation, Washington is mired in gridlock, gamesmanship and constant partisan bickering.

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

The only way to deal with gridlock is compromise. And if we compromise, it means we’ll have a confused policy.

The middle in Congress is gone now. That is where we got most things done.

I wasn't looking for a hobby. If I were looking for a hobby, it wouldn't be the United States Senate. That's one of the toughest jobs I'd probably ever do. I just felt there wasn't enough compromise going on: People were too far to the left, too far to the right, with no one trying to build a compromise.

The only bipartisan place in D.C. is Brooks Brothers.

If Mr. Obama wants to get things done, he must recognize that in Washington only the president has the power to make the first big move.

The Congress is the place where ordinary mortals go about the business of compromise—of compromise that gets us through the day.

You used to get legislation done by getting the moderates to agree. But we have no moderates now so it doesn’t get done

Gingrich, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and Clinton passed legislation because they understood and appreciated the difficult political process. They fought for their principles yet recognized the need for compromise to get anything done.

House Speaker John Boehner and presumed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell understand the art of politics.

I think with the right leadership on both sides and the right president, we can get a lot done.

The idea that two political parties can't come together to get a mission done is foreign to me - and unacceptable.

Rhetorically, President Obama is a champion of bipartisanship. In practice, though, he is almost always its enemy.

You have a Republican House, close numbers in the Senate, a Democratic president. If we're going to move forward at all as a country, we're going to have to do it by standing together.

So the - the part of the problem is not just the rhetoric. It's the fact that we - we're so polarized in what we've done to each other as parties over the last thirty years in redistricting that it's very, very hard to overcome your own constituencies and move to the middle.

Above all else stands the burning question of bipartisanship. Whatever else the politicians might say they're about, our news analysts know that this is the true object of the nation's desire, the topic to which those slippery presidential spokesmen need always to be dragged back.

I would like Obama to be tougher on going up against the Republicans, I don't think he should try to be so moderate.

I really don't think there's a lack of good will between members of the parties. I go back a long way with a lot of Republicans, so I don't think it's personal. But there does seem to be a much greater gap in both the philosophy and emphasis on partisan victories as opposed to policy development.

My message to Washington is the United States has gone through incredible crises, and our leaders have been able to find common ground. And that's what our leaders have to do.

When I was elected governor of my state, I had a legislature 87 percent Democrat. It was not lost on me that to get anything done, I couldn't be attacking them. I had to find ways to reach out to them.

The job of a leader, the job of a governor, the job of a president, is to get the people in the room and bang enough heads together and rub enough arms and cajole enough to have them put the country and the state's greater interest ahead of their own personal partisan interest. That's what we did in New Jersey and that's the model for America.

I haven't given up on working... across the aisle on issues and maybe it'll take an election or two for that to fully ferment, maybe it you know sometimes it takes awhile for people to realize what the best path is.

Though the views of members of the House and Senate are as divergent as the people we represent, we bear the responsibility to work through our political differences and get things done. That's our job.

I sure tried to help deliver compromise, consensus, bipartisanship.