Maggie Gallagher Quotes

Serving in the U.S. Congress is about much more than voting on bills. It is about taking on the corporate bullies that taint our democratic process and pushing back when the system is broken.

Trumpeting the importance of voting deludes people into thinking that they have a leash on the government.

The great constitutional corrective in the hands of the people against usurpation of power, or corruption by their agents is the right of suffrage…

We don’t trust government, but we need government….Government didn’t land here from Mars. We elected them.

A government should not become too big to fulfill one of its most basic functions: representation.

All the blood is drained out of democracy - it dies - when only half the population votes.

Elections do have consequences, and those we elect and far too often re-elect have forgotten how government works and for whom they work for, and that an ever growing, power hungry state and federal government are not the answer to the problem, but 80% of the time are the problem.

Voters do not decide issues. They decide who will decide issues.

... elections are no longer representative.

Wherever you have votes, you have power.

All voting systems are capable of being corrupted. most of them have been or will be ... simply because voting is the way we determine who gets power in this great country.

We need citizens willing to make Congress accountable for the travesty which passes for government today.

The people who own the country ought to govern it.

there is a real question as to whether "bigness" in a body politic is not an evil in itself, quite aside from the policies pursued in its name.

it is a universal practice in the popular elections in all these states, to give no legal consideration whatsoever to those who do not choose to vote, as against the effect of the votes of those, who do choose to vote. Hence it is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters, who choose to vote, that constitute the political power of the state.

Since 1990, we have been building up the idea that democracy is the best way for sectors that feel socially excluded from politics to win power.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

Look, the people will elect the government they think best.

We want to strengthen democracy.

The elections are the greatest symbol of participation and political reform.

Take it from me: Elections matter.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.

The government must give men and women without power a real say over what happens to them, and the means of engaging in a participative, invigorated and living democracy.

There are ways to pursue political change. In a democracy, it's through the ballot box. There are other ways, and many democracies have many different systems of democracy.