Ethics Reform Quotes

Meaningful ethics reform is vital to restoring public confidence in Missouri's political system.

I came to office promising major ethics reform to end the culture of self-dealing. And today, that ethics reform is a law. While I was at it, I got rid of a few things in the governor's office that I didn't believe our citizens should have to pay for. That luxury jet was over-the-top. I put it on eBay.

Campaign finance and ethics reform only works if it curtails all special interest groups equally and does not carve out any exceptions to benefit one party or another. 'Pay to play' reform was passed to limit the influence of big spending contractors over the public officials from whom they are trying to obtain work.

We've gotta restore the American people's confidence in the ethics process by ensuring that political self-interest can no longer prevent politicians from enforcing ethics rules.

There is no more important task in Washington than cleaning up the culture of corruption. Yet the president - whose White House has become the cradle of Republican corruption - is not taking responsibility for the costs of that corruption.

As we enter into the 110th Congress, it is imperative that we address ethics reforms needed to make this institution run correctly.

So the next thing I assume I'll be hearing from Republicans, they want to change rules some way, as they do on the House when you get a problem with ethics, they just change the rules.

You can reform a political culture, but it’s a big lift. First, the voters would have to convince the legislators that they’re being watched by someone other than the lobbyists. Then they’d have to press for laws that would force a change of behavior, like nonpartisan redistricting and ethics reform. Then the voters would have to follow up, year after year, until the old guard was replaced by a whole new generation who went into politics with dreams of drafting serious legislation, rather than just bringing more stuff back into the district or, at worst, shaking down some landlord at the airport for a thousand bucks.

There's been a sea change in our focus on corporate ethics. We've made more progress in the last three years than the previous 30.

Senator Chris Dodd unveiled his plan to reduce corruption in the Senate. He's retiring.

Now it's time to focus on basics for people in our neighborhoods... and real ethics reform at City Hall.

I think Congress has spent enough time on ethics. I think it's time they moved on to something else.

Ethics reform is about restoring the public trust. When that is in doubt, nothing is more important than restoring it.

We need a tougher enforcement program and, most importantly, we need to fix the badly broken ethics system.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

So often the seeds of a Congressional ethics scandal are sown by the reforms of the last ethics scandal.

Lobbyists and special interests continue to take advantage of loopholes that allow them to host lavish receptions and pay for trips for members of Congress. Those practices represent exactly what's wrong with Washington, and I'm committed to ending them.

In many ways, our campaign this year will be the same as last time: We're still going to focus on fixing up basics and cleaning up ethics at City Hall.

Anytime you do something in this arena, whether it's public records or ethics, it's not like throwing a stone in a quiet pond. It's like throwing a boulder.