Dan Donovan Quotes

I think people in my district expect me to work with the president. It doesn't mean we have to agree all the time. I don't feel any extra pressure.

It is through states that the American people get the job done every day, often in spite of a deeply flawed bureaucratic federal government.

Everything from who sits on your local board of education to the prosecutors and judicial appointments in your area and much more are all impacted by who holds political office.

As taxpayers, we pay our elected officials to serve the people and protect our state and our interests.

I was one of the first 18-year-olds in the United States elected to public office right after 18-year-olds got the right to vote back in the early '70s. I ran for the Board of Education.

If they're willing to stand at polls for countless hours in the rain, as many did, then I should surely stand up for them here in the halls of Congress.

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.

While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing.

You should go to the polls, organize yourself. But once lawmakers are chosen, they must be respected.

To me, a politician's job is to listen to constituents' problems and try to sort them out.

Senators will do what they think they need to do to represent their constituents.

As a legislator, I saw how effective I could be by being transparent, posting and explaining all of my votes.

You don't support politicians in their elections if whoever's seeking money only has a goal to stay in office or get in office. You have to pick the people who are going to do the best job.

We can make mayors and officers every year, but not scholars.

I have a huge admiration for the House of Lords, I have a huge admiration for the people who work in the House of Lords, they're great public servants and they do an absolutely tremendous job.

The Election Assistance Commission represents a major, unprecedented commitment from the federal government to sustained freedom and vibrant democracy. I am humbled by the prospect of being one its charter members.

The right to vote freely for the candidate of one’s choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government

The northern states, most of them, do not permit negroes to vote. Some of them have repeatedly and lately pronounced against it. Therefore, even if it were defensible as a principle for the Central Government to absorb by amendment the power to control the action of the States in such a matter, would it not be futile to ask three-quarters of the States to do for themselves and others, by ratifying such an amendment, the very thing most of them have already refused to do in their own cases?

Never you mind about the country, or about the state, or the city, or about the ward. You take care of your precinct.

This is representative government, and Indians have very little political clout because for the most part, they don't vote. But white ranchers and farmers do vote.

[Describing a congressman's role:] ... a sort of super lobbyist for his constituents.

We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons…. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this … work, that is its affair.

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose as those that support me. While acting as their representative I shall be governed by their will on all subjects upon which I have the means of knowing what their will is.

The people are gainers by the election of representatives. They may destroy, but they cannot exercise, the powers of government in person, but by their servants they govern: they do not renounce their power; they do not sacrifice their rights; they become the true sovereigns of the country when they delegate that power, which they cannot use themselves to their trustees.

Somebody is going to be making the laws for this entire country. It could be you. Will it be you?