Henry F. Ashurst Quotes

Enough to using Texas as a political laboratory for testing far-right ideas. Enough to using Texas as a workshop for fattening the wallets of their special interest friends and supporters. And enough of politicians listening only to each other, rather than real Texans.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

He [Donald Trump] buys and sells politicians of all stripes.

Spending limits not only do not work, they have the perverse effect of making special interests more powerful and more influential.

The principal reasons that special interests can extract their price from government is money .... Those who do not accept money from PACs are those who have other sources.

If you can deregulate money in politics, then you can buy the policy outcomes you prefer.

A millionaire can buy a Senate seat just as he would buy an opera box or a yacht or any other luxury in which he can afford to indulge himself. In some instances the sale takes the form of open bribery of the legislators; more often the Senate seat was simply the satisfaction of a ‘claim’ acknowledged by the leaders of the party and created by large contributions to the party treasury.

To dissociate politicians from capitalists is slightly disingenuous, to put it mildly. U.S. lawmakers are competitive and auction themselves to the highest bidder via the lobby system.

Billionaires and corporations buy and sell politicians, while citizens struggle to exercise their right to vote or hold their elected representatives to account.

The career politicians down in Washington don't want to be held accountable.

Once I got into politics, I saw the real fight, where big money controls everything, and where politicians care more about campaign contributions than the people they're supposed to represent.

MPs do not work for you. They work for the lobbyists who have bought their parties.

The job of elected leaders is to deliver results that represent the interests of the citizens who placed them in a position of authority with their voice, their vote. But these days, money talks louder.

When dealing with American politics, you try to follow the money, and that's where it leads you. It doesn't take you to the electoral college or to Princeton. It takes you down the darker alleys of American life.

You know they say the most dangerous person of the world is a member of the United States Congress just home from a three-day fact-finding trip.

Too many terms corrupts politicians so they only want to be reelected.

The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes.

We pay a price when special interests win out over the collective national interest.

There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.

You can't take a congressman to lunch for $25 and buy him a hamburger or a steak or something like that. But you can take him to a fund-raising lunch and not only buy him that steak, but give him $25,000 extra and call it a fund-raiser - and have all the same access and all the same interactions with that congressman.

I actually never thought that Barack Obama was anything but a typical Democratic party politician, which to me meant that he was probably in bed with Wall Street.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

Too often, they play to whatever group is the loudest down at City Hall, and they buy them off, essentially.

I'm disappointed that Senator DeWine once again chose to go along with his party leaders and their big corporate lobbyist supporters. Ohio deserves a Senator who will be more than a rubber stamp.

Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people.