Cory Gardner Quotes

What is good for Alaska is good for the country. Transferring power from the federal government to the states provides opportunity to all states, not just Alaska.

Texans can run Texas without the federal government telling them what to do.

States should have enormous input into the decisions that affect them.

I think that the more we, as a state, yield and cede decisions to the federal government, the lesser we'll be for it as a state.

Many states have legalized medicinal marijuana. I believe the president and the Department of Justice ought to respect the will of these separate states... We are capable of self-government. We don't need some federal gendarme to come and tell us what to do. I believe comity toward the states...ought to govern the policy.

In my eight years as governor, I did everything I could to resist federal control of issues that belong to the states.

Whenever Washington makes a one-size-fits-all decision, it doesn't work in states all around the country.

We have to allow people in the states to make their own decisions, to get government agencies out of the way and let local people make decisions about what's best for them.

I'm a strong supporter of states' rights to do what they need.

I would support a devolution of power out of Washington for education, health care, transportation.

I am going to make Washington as irrelevant to your lives as possible

Our best protection against bigger government in Washington is better government in the states.

I don't think the federal government should be a part of everything. I think that governing should be done state-by-state... so that you can tailor your governing to the people's needs.

I'm pro-life but I believe that the federal government ought to stay out of it. That's a decision that the people of each state ought to make for themselves.

I think he should let me run Ohio. He should let us, the legislature, the members there, we should be running Ohio. The states are the laboratories out here, and I think the president needs to mind to the problems that he has in Washington.

I often say that Arizonans should decide what's best for Arizona.

The federal government should stay out of it.

There is a tension between the flexibility we give states and the accountability we require from states.

The proposed system [of American government] is like the solar system, in which the states are the planets, and they ought to be left to move more freely in their proper orbits.

Our nation is too different, too diverse to say that what works in Massachusetts is somehow going to be grabbed by the federal government, usurping the power of states and imposing a one-size-fits-all plan on the nation. That will not work.

I do believe that power needs to be returned to the states. I think that we've got way too much power in Washington. This is where I'm focused: way too much power in Washington.

I think that decisions should rest in the hands of the states. I'm a federalist.

The word "federalism" you might think that means federalism trumps everything; federalism means federal domination. It does not mean that. It means the exact opposite, in fact. It means the states are sovereign and the federal government cannot tell 'em what to do in so many different ways.

I don't want to be the president of the United States. I do want to work with the governors across the country to make the states more pivotal, more powerful, as they should be.

There's a lot of the Midwest and the West in Justice Rehnquist's approach to constitutional law. And by that I mean a recognition that people know pretty well how to govern themselves, that government that is closest to the people is apt to be more responsive to their legitimate concerns and needs.