Illinois Politics Quotes

The biggest challenge I have with Washingtonians is they think Illinois is exclusively a Democratic state.

There are plenty of examples of very wealthy people who have run for office and failed, certainly in Illinois.

The Barack who was so successful in Illinois in a Republican-controlled legislative situation for most of his time and who was a very outspoken progressive voice, that's not the man who we ended up having as president.

Unfortunately, Bruce Rauner is more committed to playing politics than fighting for Illinois women and families.

It's not unusual for someone running for Senate in Illinois to come see me.

When I'm governor, we're not going to be silent like Bruce Rauner. Illinois will be a firewall against Donald Trump's destructive and bigoted agenda.

I'm running for governor because I think we need to change things in Illinois.

The people of Illinois sent me to Springfield to end the era of unbalanced budgets and runaway debt.

You're never going to catch me agreeing with anything that Bruce Rauner says, given the things he's done in this state, trying to pit the city of Chicago against the rest of Illinois - I'll never agree with anything Bruce Rauner says.

Before I was elected to Congress, I helped to create the public corruption unit in the office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. Unfortunately, business was good. Among the usual suspects were government contracts steered to insiders - leaving Illinois taxpayers holding the bag.

Twenty-two years ago Judge [then-Senator Stephen] Douglas and I first became acquainted. We were both young then; he a trifle younger than I. Even then, we were both ambitious; I, perhaps, quite as much so as he. With me, the race of ambition has been a failure--a flat failure; with him it has been one of splendid success.

The fact is that politics in Illinois is a blood sport. It's really rough. It's really nasty.

Illinois has less than a 12 percent black population and I won with 55 percent of the vote.

There are some who might say that somebody named Barack Obama can't be elected senator in the state of Illinois. They're probably the same folks who said that a guy named Rod Blagojevich couldn't be elected governor of the state of Illinois.

Thank you to the readers of the 'Huffington Post' for voting me the 'Hottest Freshman' of the 111th Congress. It's about time politicians from Illinois were known for something other than bad haircuts or having the ability to walk on water.

Illinois is the only state where the present governor rides around in a car whose license plate was made by a previous governor.

Your average person in Illinois doesn't really even know what workers' comp is. The average person doesn't know really what's going on in the pension system. They know their taxes are too high; they know we've got a deficit. But getting that message out and helping the people of Illinois really understand what's going on, that's hard.

In politics, you never know who's going to die, retire, or - in Illinois - get indicted.

In Illinois, where legislators are paid $45,000, plus as much as $10,000 for leadership work, about half are full-time politicians.

It takes a tough, stand-up governor to stand up to the president of the United States - speaking out against the president, speaking out against his policies and, more than that, having actual policies that will help expand health care while... Trump is trying to diminish it for Illinois families.

But, also, before I even go on the Medicare prescription drug debate, I always tell the folks in rural Illinois, and I represent 30 counties south of Springfield down to Indiana and Kentucky, that in this bill is the best rural package for hospitals ever passed.

Personally, I'm incredibly lucky to represent the 10th district of Illinois, which stretches from the edges of Cook county all the way north along Lake Michigan to the borders of Wisconsin. From the lake all the way west to Fox Lake. It's an incredible district.