Quotes about Legislation Process

Ronald Reagan

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

Scott Garrett

On the Sandy bill, I did the best I could on waste, fraud and abuse, and then when the final bill comes, you don't say, 'Hell, no' because you didn't get everything you want in there.

Mark Twain

There are two things nobody should ever have to watch being made, sausage and laws.

Tim Kaine

Usually the president is kind of the initiator of the idea, then Congress makes it work.

Ellen Goodman

The conference committee, that wonderful wrestling ring of compromise where House and Senate versions of bill are wrenched into law ...

Major Owens

It is very difficult to get legislation passed. But then the danger always is that you have no power at all if you do not exercise constant power.

Eligius Fromentin

Our laws to be wholesome need not be enacted in a palace.

In 1814 the British burned Washington including the capitol building. President Madison arranged for the senate to meet in Blodgett's Hotel, on Eighth and E Streets, Northwest. Some of the senators felt that the setting was inappropriate for the conduct of senatorial business. Fromentin disagreed.

Blake Farenthold

You start as far to the right as you can get, and go to the Conference Committee with the Senate, and hopefully end up with something you can live with.

This is an important political quotation because it illustrates one of the major reasons that Congress was so gridlocked at the time and passed hardly any legislation at all. Farenthold was a relatively new Congressman supported by the Tea Party extreme conservatives. He had no Congressional legislative experience and viewed the House / Senate Conference Committee process more like a Middle East rug bazaar than a serious democratic process of constructive legislation. The position that he wants to take to the Conference Committee which is “livable” to him is not only unlivable to the majority of the Senate, but unlivable for a large part of his own House of Representatives, His position is so extreme that most Senators and many House members on the Conference Committee do not even bother to attempt to negotiate from there. Experienced Congressional legislators realize that negotiation can only take place between realistic options. Otherwise no legislation gets passed which was at that time, OK with most of the Tea Party supporters.

Strom Thurmond

All legislation of any consequence is a compromise. You have to recognize that.

Mark Twain

People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either being made.

Matt Taibbi

Creating legislation is a tough process. But watering down legislation? Strangling it with lawsuits and comment letters and blue-ribbon committees? Not so tough, it turns out.

Otto von Bismarck

Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made.

Harry Hay

A law is a law. It can be voted in. It can be voted out. It can be voted in and stay in as long as you have the majority. And where do you have the majority? You kid yourself.

Otto von Bismarck

Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made.

Neal Shusterman

How can you pass laws about things that nobody knows?" "They do it all the time," says Hayden. "That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.

George J. Mitchell

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

The President had threatened to veto a budget bill if it contained a provision that would increase taxes for the wealthy. There were not enough votes to override the veto. The majority leader urged dropping the provision:

Marco Rubio

We must remember that in the House, Congressman [Carlos] Curbelo has a - the same law, and it has a lot of support in the House. It's possible that it will happen first in the House and then go to the Senate.

David Paulson

It’s more difficult to get people on board at the Federal level than it is locally.

The new director was faced with 2,600 personnel vacancies in this critical office and the jobs were not getting filled quickly. Many people who are appointed to high Federal Office and come from the private sector or state and local government, are appalled at the extensive and cumbersome bureaucracy that makes the hiring of Federal employees so tedious and slow.

John Dingell

When you're going to pass legislation that will cover 300 [million] American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.

Note his choice of the word “control”. Some politicians believe that the purpose of most legislation is to enhance the control; that the government maintains over its citizens. However the United States Constitution was written and ratified so that the citizens could control the politicians. Neither group has prevailed totally.

Nancy Pelosi

But we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy.

Noam Chomsky

You ought to teach kids that elections take place but that's not politics. If you want to know how legislation is made it doesn't come from elections.

Paul Krugman

We have a constitution that says that the way you get things is by passing legislation, not by threatening to destroy the country unless you get your way.

In 2012 the Republicans controlled the House but not the Senate or the White House. As the nation grows, the Congressionally voted budgets have implications and the budget ceiling has to be raised to balance the two. That had always been a bipartisan process over the life of the nation. However, the Republicans in the House decided that they would hold the debt ceiling legislation hostage to pressure the Senate and the White House to pass legislation that the majority of the Senate and the President thought was bad for the country. Krugman advised the President and the Senate to resist giving in to this blackmail even if the debt ceiling was hostage to their demands.

Legislation Process Quotes