Chris Gibson Quotes

If the Congress fails then American democracy is dysfunctional.

In my day, the president ruled with authority before the law, but now all that is lost.

For students, understanding the separate and unique functions of each branch of government can help them understand how different kinds of government officials can help solve different kinds of problems.

It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. That's set out in the Constitution.

It would seem that the Watergate story from beginning to end could be used as a primer on the American political system.

The government is formed and the seat of power is safe.

You cannot choose between party government and Parliamentary government. I say, you can have no Parliamentary government if you have no party government; and, therefore, when Gentlemen denounce party government, they strike at that scheme of government which, in my opinion, has made this country great, and which I hope will keep it great.

The Constitutional framework of checks and balances matters.

Forget about war or disease or poverty. The apocalypse is when America's elected president is no longer supervised by the unelected ruling establishment.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

You need the House, you need the Senate and you need the administration. And absent one of them, you're not going to get a heck of a lot done.

I do strongly believe myself that members of the government who sit in the House of Lords should be accountable to the elected House because otherwise there is a democratic deficit, and that is wrong.

We can't do without government, but we do need it to be more effective.

I have been in Congress for more than a half century. I have lived through times of fear and times of hope. Of despair and of achievement. I have seen our government at its best, but today I fear that we see our government at its worst.

We are the only institution in our society that can question a president on a regular basis and make him accountable. Otherwise, he could be king.

There are checks and balances and broad separation of powers under the Constitution. Each organ of the State, i.e. the legislature, the executive and the judiciary, must have respect for the others and not encroach into each other's domain.

You know, we have three branches of government. We have a House. We have a Senate. We have a President.

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

I happen to agree with many of President Obama's policies, but in our system, it is often as important how you do something as what you do.

Democracy is good, provided the government can function.

The purpose of a written constitution is to bind up the several branches of government by certain laws, which, when they transgress, their acts shall become nullities; to render unnecessary an appeal to the people, or in other words a rebellion, on every infraction of their rights, on the peril that their acquiescence shall be construed into an intention to surrender those rights.

The four pillars of government are ... religion, justice, counsel, and treasure.

An attorney general has to stand up [to the President], and sometimes he will be replaced.

No other country has copied the separation and division of powers that we have.

The federal courts do not sit as an ombudsman, refereeing the disputes between the other two branches.