State Legislation Quotes

The power to regulate commerce does not look to the principle by which boats were moved. That power was left to individual discretion. The act demonstrates the opinion of Congress that steamboats may be enrolled and licensed in common with vessels using sails. They are, of course, entitled to the same privileges and can no more be restrained from navigating waters and entering ports, which are free to such vessels, than if they were wafted on their voyage by the winds instead of being propelled by the agency of fire. The one element may be as legitimately used as the other, for every commercial purpose authorized by the laws of the river, and the act of a State inhibiting the use of either to any vessel, having a license under the act of Congress, comes, we think, in direct collision with that act. The acts of the Legislature of the State of New York, granting to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton the exclusive navigation of all the waters within the jurisdiction of that State, with boats moved by fire or steam, for a term of years, are repugnant to that clause of the constitution of the United States, which authorizes Congress to regulate commerce, so far as the said acts prohibit vessels licensed, according to the laws of the United States, for carrying on the coasting trade, from navigating the said waters by means of fire or steam.

In 1984, when I was a rookie member of the House, there was a bill introduced to make Martin Luther King's birthday a state holiday. It didn't have a chance. As time passed, though, more and more states adopted the holiday. Finally, after about five years, we passed it and, I think, almost unanimously. As I said, change is slow and hard.

Every Democrat, like every American, should support a woman's right to make her own choices about her body and her health. That is not negotiable and should not change city by city or state by state.

I do believe that the states have the right to make the definition of marriage, and each state can define it as they so choose through their elected representatives.

As we’re moving forward at the state level, we end up hollowing out Roe even without the Supreme Court. That’s really where our strategy is so solid.

Almost all law in the United States is State law.

If the federal government won't secure the border, the State of Arizona will step in to complement federal efforts in a constitutional manner and protect the security of its citizens.

In New Mexico... I may have vetoed more legislation as governor of New Mexico than all the other governors in the country combined.

[The state would] have an equal right to make laws protecting polygamy.

In 2007, when I was governor of New York, I proposed that our state once again permit undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license. To say the proposal lit a firestorm in the political arena is an understatement.

It is illegal for any person, firm, or corporation to sell, offer to sell, or to bring into the state for the purpose of selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of, any cigarettes, cigarette paper, or substitute for the same

there ought always to be a constitutional method of giving efficacy to constitutional provisions. What for instance would avail restrictions on the authority of the state legislatures, without some constitutional mode of enforcing the observance of them? . . . This power must either be a direct negative on the state laws, or an authority in the federal courts, to over-rule such as might be in manifest contravention of the articles of union.

I knew Arizona's SB 1070 would be controversial when I introduced it, but I did not expect the national immigration debate to revolve around a state law. While the anti-American open-borders Left attack me and the law as 'racist,' 'nativist' and their other empty smear words, the vast majority of the people of Arizona and America support the law.

Yesterday, voters in the state of Maine voted no to gay marriage, but yes to medical marijuana. That's right, people in Maine believe marriage should be a sacred institution between a really stoned man and a really stoned woman.

I believe marriage should be between one man and one woman. That's my view, and that'll be the view of our state because I wouldn't sign a bill that - like the one that was in New York.

The bigger goal of giving all parents more choices is one that will have to be discussed and undoubtedly roundly debated, but we are going to have to continue to build the case. The momentum is there on the state level in many states. That's where the energy needs to be harnessed in a new way.

On things like the minimum wage, where cities as well as states are increasingly looking at income disparity, mayors will have, I think, a very strong voice.

Whenever the Republicans have an opportunity, they've tried to make New Mexico into a right-to-work state, and so I've been on the front lines fighting that for a long time.

The right of property is before and higher than any constitutional sanction, and the right of the owner of a slave to such slave and its increase is the same and as inviolable as the right of the owner of any property whatever... The Legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves without the consent of the owners, or without paying the owners previous to their emancipation a full equivalent in money for the slaves so emancipated. They shall have no power to prevent immigrants to the State from bringing with them such persons as are deemed slaves by the laws of any one of the United States or Territories, so long as any person of the same age or description shall be continued in slavery by the laws of this State: Provided, That such person or slave be the bona fide property of such immigrants

The definition of relationships ought to be left up to the states and that proper protections can be put in place for the right to visit in the hospital or the right to inherit or other legal contractual questions like that.

Throughout my time in the State House, we have worked to protect and expand access to reproductive care for people across the state.

We recommend a uniform system of laws for the several states.

What the Idaho Health Freedom Act says is that the citizens of our state won't be subject to another federal mandate or turn over another part of their life to government control.

The activists will not stop in trying to impose their extreme views on the rest of us, and they have now plotted out a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without the voice of the people being heard.

A territory cannot become a state or a nation unless Congress approves legislation and the president signs it.