Congress & State Legislatures Quotes

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.

We [the Senate] are a small town of 100 people. It makes no sense to not get along with others.

I don't know anyone who voted today [in the Senate] who knew what he was voting on.

I deeply and sincerely regret that this body has degenerated into a supine, subservient, soporific, superfluous, supercilious, pusillanimous body of nitwits, the greatest ever gathered beneath the dome of our National Capitol, who cowardly abdicate their powers and, in violation of their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution against all of the Nation's enemies, both foreign and domestic, turn over these constitutional prerogatives, not only granted but imposed upon them, to a group of tax-eating, conceited autocratic bureaucrats a bunch of theoretical, intellectual, professorial nincompoops out of Columbia University, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue who were never elected by the American people to any office and who are responsible to no constituency. These brain trusters and 'new dealers' are the ones who wrote this resolution, instead of the Members of this House whose duty it is, and whose sole duty it is, to draft legislation.

We have a major crisis in the system. the Preisdent is so powerful that he overehelms the rest of the Government. .... This has been going on for over 50 years. Each president adds more and more power.... Congress is crippled and cowardly .... They don't use their appropriations power. They have been passing continuing resultions for 20 years.

Public Congressional Investigation hearings are freak shows.

The President [Donald Trump] asked me to look you square in the eye and to say taht he hoped you voted no on this bill so he could run a primary challanger against you in 2018,

He could talk a dog off a meat wagon. He talked a lot but said nothing.

Bad facts make bad law.

Members of Congress are trustees of the people.

Congress is good at two things: Doing nothing and over-reacting.

I prefer a simple bill which deals with a single basic issue. When you add new provisions to a bill you develop a larger coalition of opposition. Each new provision brings in more opponents who combine with the existing opponents until you no longer can pass the law.

Our time is short and history is watching.

The Republican Health Care Plan has three problems. It isn’t healthy, it is not caring and there is no plan.

In evaluating any given claim of misconduct, we will be ill served in the long run if we abandon the presumption of innocence and fairness, tempting though it may be. We must always remember that it is when passions are most inflamed that fairness is most in jeopardy.

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

The history of Congress shows that once parliamentary tools become big enough obstacles for the majority party, they are abolished or reformed.

I had misgivings about the Bush administration's stance, but I felt pressure in my tight Senate race to go along with it. it was obvious that if I voted against the resolution that I would be dead meat in the race, just handing them ... a victory. It was the worst vote I cast.

I am retiring from the Senate because I am far from my party on many issues. It would be very hard for me to win the Republican primary election for teh Senate. I don't think I have changed much. The Republican party has changed a great deal.

The world has changed. People who care nothing about norms can no longer be dismissed as a fringe. For generations, left-wing activists have instructed students and other groups that norms are the building blocks of a rigged system that deprives them of power and denies their “selfless” desires. We don’t want to acknowledge what this has wrought. We have norms because they safeguard foundational principles, such as due process, the presumption of innocence, and freedom from unreasonable and unwarranted police prying. But the Left is no longer attached to those principles.

I thought about this time to be making preparations for leaving this place [the Contenental Congress], but none of my colleagues appearing to relieve me, several States being unrepresented in Congress, and affairs of the first magnitude being now on the tapis, I thought it inconsistent with my honor to leave the State unrepresented at so interesting a period. Notwithstanding my anxious impatience to return to my family, I have determined to stay till I am relieved, or at least till the States are more fully represented in Congress.

Congressional investigations are not serious.... If you are really investigating something, you do not decide what the conclusion should be and then hold hearings to demonstrate those conclusions.... In politics, facts don't matter; you can say anything.

As tough as juggling the demands of motherhood and being a Senator can be, I’m hardly alone or unique as a working mother, and my children only make me more committed to doing my job and standing up for hardworking families everywhere. For me to find out that there are issues with the United States Senate’s rules where I may not be able to vote or bring my child onto the floor of the Senate when I need to vote because we ban children from the floor, I thought, ‘Wow, I feel like I’m living in the 19th century instead of the 21st".

We need more women and moms in Congress — both in the House and in the Senate. So we should make sure that the congressional workplace reflects the needs of working moms. The House allows children on the House floor, and I believe it should be allowed in the Senate too. My kids, and having all three of them while serving in the House, have made me a better legislator. Being a mom makes politics real.

A man who can’t smell the mood of the Senate has no business being leader.