Frank Mankewitz Quotes

One cannot legislate problems out of existence. It has been tried.

My effectiveness is best placed in solving problems through federal solutions.

Legislation is a matter of more or less intelligent improvisation aiming at palliating conditions by means of patchwork policies.

If I could solve these problems with passing laws in the Congress, I would do so.

You can’t fix the things that bother you the most by passing a law.

We cannot solve a problem until we understand the full extent of the problem.

If you can't legislate, you can't deal with problems.

When you pass legislation, it is not tied to a particular problem. It can have unintended consequences.

Generally, you cannot solve a problem without defining the problem completely.

Some people seem to believe that for each problem there is a solution readily available - a solution that can be promptly achieved by passing a law and voting some money. I think of this as the vending machine concept of social change. Put a coin in the machine and out comes a piece of candy. If there is a social problem, pass a law and out comes a solution.

When something goes wrong, the natural tendency is to say, "By God, we need to pass a law and do something."

I know how to take good ideas and turn them into sensible law at great odds.

The world is not going to be saved by legislation.

However much a president wishes it, a national problem cannot be knocked out with a single punch. A president must work with the problem as much as against it, turn it into a solution if she can.

How you define a problem shapes how you address it.

When we visited with legislative counsel, they told us that the only way to effectively accomplish what we were trying to do was to put the words in the legislation.

The country don’t need no legislation

In effect, to follow, not to force, the public inclination,—to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislation.

All the legislation in the world cannot fix what is wrong with America.

The science of legislation is like that of medicine in one respect: that it is far more easy to point out what will do harm than what will do good.

Public policy must lead and not merely react.

... government by commission is a boon to all members of Congress, who cringe at facing no-win situations.... It gets the job done.

Every law enacted by the General Assembly shall embrace but one subject.

Do you want to make a statement or do you want to make a law?

No law is quite appropriate for all.