Legislative Relations Quotes

The Secretary of State has always stood as much alone as the historian. Required to look far ahead and around him, he measures forces unknown to party managers, and has found Congress more or less hostile since Congress first sat.

We saw what happened in Jimmy Carter's administration. President Carter was a good man with the best of intentions. But he came to Washington without a good working relationship with Democratic members of Congress, which played a big part in his administration's problems.

I am polite and I usually always consult them [Congressional leaders]. I don't ask their permission. I just consult them.

The White House staff [under Richard Nixon] viewed Congress in much the same way that the chairman of the board of a huge corporation regards his regional sales managers.

I know well the coequal role of the Congress in our constitutional process. I love the House of Representatives. I revere the traditions of the Senate despite my too-short internship in that great body. As President, within the limits of basic principles, my motto toward the Congress is communication, conciliation, compromise, and cooperation.

As human nature is very much the same in Congress as in a stock exchange, a church convention, or a newspaper office, the President who deals with Congress tactfully and courteously will, in the long run get more of what he wants than the President who does not do so. He may not get so much credit for what he does gain, from those people who like to see a President fight Congress, especially in that flattering way which consists in appealing to them to make Congress do what the President wants done.

When I was elected governor of my state, I had a legislature 87 percent Democrat. It was not lost on me that to get anything done, I couldn't be attacking them. I had to find ways to reach out to them.

I don't know what the strategy will be in Washington. The reality is, is, I have got to go down there, as my mentor, as people like Bill Bradley have told me to do, get to know your colleagues on both sides of the aisle, recognize that they, too, beat with the same heart and the same type of blood.

I have 15 years of executive experience as a big-city mayor and as a governor.

In the ordinary and low sense which we attach to the words "partisan" and "politician," a judge of the supreme court should be neither. But in the higher sense ... he is not in my judgment fitted for the position unless he is a party man, a constructive statesman ... keeping in mind his relations with his fellow statesmen in other branches of government.

I was director of governmental affairs at the Cleveland school district. I served in the administration of Mayor Michael R. White.

If Presidents are not looking for confrontations with the Congress—even with their own party members—then their aides are.

The job of every president is to ride herd over Congress.

If I were president, I would want to spend a lot of time going to the legislatures and telling them about best practices, whether it's about fighting poverty, whether it's about educating kids. The states are the laboratories where we can see what works. And I think presidents can have a much better relationship with legislatures.

Any time you’re standing at the podium at the White House and talking about Congressional leaders, you’re probably getting yourself into trouble.

A Bush Administration will, I believe, enjoy a better relationship with the new Congress, although President-elect Bush will be faced with real challenges in getting along with the Congress.

Lesson 1 from Spitzer: Don't alienate the legislature on Day 1.

I am prepared to admit that when it comes to dealing with the House and Senate leaders, Obama is terrible. But he's great with the public. Which hates the House and Senate as much as he does.