Patrick Leahy Quotes

I don’t chose my friends and associates on the basis of political party. The Senate has become altogether too nasty.

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.

I've worked with a variety of presidents over the years on both sides of the aisle and congressmen and senators, so I'm not into trying to demonize anybody. It used to be that people would fight like hell on the floor of the house and they'd go have a beer together. Now it's like you're radioactive if you talk to the other side, which keeps us from getting anything done. I'm an independent personally, and I vote for who I believe will make the biggest difference.

I will not be making appointments to a committee that is not bipartisan.

It's a sad indication of where Washington has come, where policy differences almost necessarily become questions of integrity. I came to Washington in the late '70s, and people had the ability in the past to have intense policy differences but didn't feel the need to question the other person's character.

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 do hope that next year Republicans and Democrats will do nothing.

Have we come to the point where the Democratic Party needs a Republican President?

There are some in Congress who would rather see their opponents lose than see their country win. That has got to stop…. They must find a way to put country ahead of party.

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

As recently as the 1960s, dozens of members of Congress frequently crossed the aisle to vote with a majority in the other party. Now there is only a handful of such moderates and they are a dying breed.

Though she is a proud native of one of the most famously liberal cities in the country, Feinstein has earned a reputation over the years in the Senate as someone eager to work across the aisle with Republicans.

My father was on the Judiciary Committee all 18 years. He had a good personal relationship with Jim Eastland. They probably didn't agree on practically anything, or very little, from a public policy standpoint. But they were willing to work through that to see what they could get done just because they knew each other and liked each other.

Senators, representatives too often, we hear from our base, don't talk to the other side, don't with work with them.

When Senator McCain reaches across the aisle to find Democrats to support efforts to make America stronger, he finds plenty of us standing, willing to help him and many other Republican leaders.

In the past, leaders of both parties have been able to reach across the partisan divide. They succeeded by retaining their own humanity and recognizing the same in their political opponents.

Bipartisanship and decency are thrown to the waste side because people want their party to win so badly.

The left are not bipartisan. Somebody give me an example of left-wing bipartisanship. They don't even define it the way we do. Bipartisanship, as they define it, as in we cave on our core beliefs and agree with them. That is bipartisanship. There is no compromise.

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

It used to be that Democrats and Republicans would disagree, but they could be social to each other. There were times during the year that we acted together in the good of the country.

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

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.

In the Senate, where 60 votes are required to do anything important, you have to work with your colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

I'd like to see that bipartisanship come back that we used to have in the House of Representatives, in the Clinton years. I think there's a possibility that the voters are going to send the message that everybody running - Congress, the Senate, the presidency - that they want us to come together.

The Senate is a place filled with goodwill and good intentions, and if the road to hell is paved with them, then it's a pretty good detour.