Legislative Quotes

#1. There is an increasingly pervasive sense not only of failure, but of futility. The legislative process has become a cruel shell game and the service system has become a bureaucratic maze, inefficient, incomprehensible, and inaccessible.

Elliot Richardson

#2. We need to decouple the movement for comprehensive immigration reform and justice for immigrants from the legislative process and from the Democratic Party process. They are too linked.

Luis Gutierrez

#3. Important state legislative races and statewide elections for offices like Lt. Governor and Attorneys General are often overshadowed by gubernatorial and federal elections.

Ronnie Musgrove

#4. The parliamentary principle of vesting legislative power in the decision of the majority rejects the authority of the individual and puts a numerical quota of anonymous heads in its place. In doing so it contradicts the aristocratic principle, which is a fundamental law of nature.

Adolf Hitler

#5. In Islam, the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.

Ruhollah Khomeini

#6. All businesses, including gasoline stations and restaurants, should close ever Sunday ... by force of legislative fiat through the duly elected officials of the people.

Harold Lindsell

#7. If the president uses executive orders to legislate new laws, that would be an example of him subverting legislative power from Congress, and might be considered a gross perversion of the Constitution.

Gary Hansen

#8. We have the means and we have the technology to end mass surveillance without any legislative action at all, without any policy changes.

Edward Snowden

#9. The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.

Ralph Nader

#10. If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.

Alexander Hamilton

#11. We all understand that compromise is part of the legislative process, yet at the same time, I would submit that wilderness is not for sale.

Nick Rahall

#12. Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.

Aristotle.

#13. The most important consideration I have is I want my legislative shop to have a functional office suite that is conducive to getting their work accomplished.

Steve Womack

#14. The money needed to run for office, the money spent on lobbying by special interests, the ever-increasing economic disparity, and the well-funded legislative decisions, all favor corporate interests over the people.

Neil Young

#15. Hence it is a mistake to think, that the supreme or legislative power of any common-wealth, can do what it will, and dispose of the estates of the subject arbitrarily, or take any part of them at pleasure.

John Locke

#16. Upon you, fellow-citizens, as the representatives of the States and the people, is wisely devolved the legislative power.

Millard Fillmore

#17. I hope that the American public understands that we have three levels of government. We have the (unintelligible) the executive, but there's legislative and the judicial, and the legislative obviously need to be just doing their job.

Stockard Channing

#18. You have it within your grasp to be regarded as one of the greatest legislative sessions in the history of the state. If you're bold and if you're ready to aggressively reach for our future, all the ingredients are here. The opportunities are waiting for us.

Dirk Kempthorne

#19. It isrequisite from time to time to remind one generation of the experience which led a former generation to important legislative actions.

William Stanley Jevons

#20. The better proof of reverence for that holy name would be not to profane it by making it a topic of legislative discussion ...

James Madison

#21. I do not conceive that power is given to the President and Senate to dismember the empire, or to alienate any great, essential right. I do not think the whole legislative authority have this power. The exercise of the power must be consistent with the object of the delegation.

James Madison

#22. If we were left to ourselves, unfettered by legislative enactments, we should gradually withdraw our capital from the cultivation of such lands, and import the produce which is at present raised upon them.

David Ricardo

#23. In 1984, Nevada Senator Paul Laxalt gave me the opportunity of a lifetime to serve as a legislative intern in his office in Washington, D.C. Coming from humble beginnings, the experience changed my life and charted me on a path of public service.

Brian Sandoval

#24. So that the executive and legislative branches of the national government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national sovereignty, as such, has no representation.

Joseph Story

#25. I have a duty to protect the executive branch from legislative encroachment.

George W. Bush

#26. Legislative novelty is not necessarily fatal; there is a first time for everything.

John Roberts

#27. No legislative, administrative or judicial activity in the Hong Kong SAR is allowed to contradict the Basic Law, let alone to go against the Basic Law.

Wu Bangguo

#28. Challenges of historic import threaten America's future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

Evan Bayh

#29. In spite of the general agreement by professional educators, the public, and legislative bodies that the health and growth of teachers are basic to the health of schools, existing staff development is crammed into a tiny space of money and time.

Bruce R. Joyce

#30. I've loved being in legislative office on a state level, and I think on a federal level there are so many more opportunities. I'm so excited to accomplish more.

Grace Meng

#31. Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

Ayn Rand

#32. Democracy is a political method, that is to say, a certain type of institutional arrangement for arriving at political - legislative and administrative - decisions and hence incapable of being an end in itself.

Joseph A. Schumpeter

#33. Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, that don't hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous.

Will Rogers

#34. And in terms of their crown jewel legislative achievement: who knew that when asked, 'will government impose a new federal mandate requiring middle class Americans to buy health insurance whether they can afford it or not?' The answer would be 'Yes we can!'

Artur Davis

#35. Ideas matter. Legislative proposals matter. Slick campaigns and dazzling speeches can work for a while, but the magic always wears off.

Charles Krauthammer

#36. What happens when you have vast legislative overreach is you don't particularly fix the problem you started out to fix but create problems for everyone else.

Carly Fiorina

#37. Being 'at the mercy of legislative majorities' is merely another way of describing the basic American plan: representative democracy.

Robert Bork

#38. Nature of war to increase the executive at the expense of the legislative authority.

Alexander Hamilton

#39. Experience has instructed us that no skill in the science of government has yet been able to discriminate and define, with sufficient certainty, its three great provinces the legislative, executive, and judiciary; or even the privileges and powers of the different legislative branches.

James Madison

#40. There is as yet no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from legislative power and the executrix

Baron De Montesquieu

#41. First, it is not unimportant that the legislative texts of the Old Testament are placed in the mouth of Moses and within the narrative framework of the sojourn at Sinai.

Paul Ricoeur

#42. The authority of the Supreme Court must not be permitted to control the Congress or the Executive when acting in their legislative capacities, but to have only such influence as the force of their reasoning may deserve.

Andrew Jackson

#43. Large legislative bodies resolve themselves into coteries, and coteries into jealousies.

Napoleon Bonaparte

#44. The Supreme Court and courts in general have been usurping the role of the legislative branch of government.

Todd Akin

#45. We should not see those great displacements of capital, of labor, and of population, that legislative measures occasion; displacements that render so uncertain and precarious the very sources of existence, and thus enlarge to such an extent the responsibility of Governments.

Frederic Bastiat

#46. By perfecting this legislative machinery and by participating in the various international agreements we intend to contribute to the wholesome development of world trade.

Shigeru Yoshida

#47. In the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, 'independent' regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections.

Ilana Mercer

#48. Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.

James Madison

#49. It may be said, let him take Money at Interest, and not buy at Time. But then Men must be found, that will lend; the Legislative must provide a Fund to borrow upon.

Dudley North

#50. Leaves no room of human legislation in an Islamic state, because herein all legislative functions vest in God and the only function left for Muslims lies in their observance of the God-made law.

Abul A'la Maududi

#51. There is no position which depends on clearer principles than that every act of a delegated authority, contrary to the commission under which it is exercised, is void. No legislative act, therefore, contrary to the Constitution, can be valid.

Alexander Hamilton

#52. I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done.

Hillary Clinton

#53. Children have fewer rights than almost any other group and fewer institutions protecting these rights. Consequently, their voices and needs are almost completely absent from the debates, policies, and legislative practices that are constructed in terms of their needs.

Henry A. Giroux

#54. The do-not-call registry is still being challenged in court. Yet, the conclusions of the American people, the legislative branch, and the executive branch are beyond question.

George W. Bush

#55. Local and state governments have outrun the federal government. The EPA has served notice that it will enact a rule requiring CO2 reductions by major emitters in the absence of major legislation. But it's a blunt instrument that is a little more difficult to use than a legislative remedy.

Al Gore

#56. The powers of the federal government are enumerated; it can only operate in certain cases; it has legislative powers on defined and limited objects, beyond which it cannot extend its jurisdiction.

James Madison

#57. I am one who believes that the people's views and values are represented by those who they elect in the legislative branch and not unelected federal judges appointed for life.

George Allen

#58. Parliamentary committees are becoming more independent, tactics are becoming more sophisticated, and industries that don't want to be bushwhacked by some damaging legislative amendment will have to spend more time and money watching the Hill.

John Ibbitson

#59. Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

Bertrand Russell

#60. If there are rights or duties of people which are not guaranteed because they're part of a [de facto] union and not of a family, there will be the need of a legislative action to remove the disparity. Obviously, when talking about people I refer to everyone [including homosexuals].

Gianfranco Fini

#61. Redistricting is one of the purest actions a legislative body can take.

John Engler

#62. EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.

Ambrose Bierce

#63. While the seeming independence of the federal judiciary has played a vital part in making its actions virtual Holy Writ for the bulk of the people, it is also and ever true that the judiciary is part and parcel of the government apparatus and appointed by the executive and legislative branches.

Murray Rothbard

#64. All of us want to see the details of any legislative plan if there's going to be a legislative response, but Congress, I believe, is in the mood to do whatever it takes to win this war against terrorism.

Richard Shelby

#65. The people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches.

John Witherspoon

#66. You know, to preserve our job-friendly climate the Texas legislature didn't raise taxes this last legislative session while balancing their budget and maintaining their reserves - and might I add that our budget leaves $6 billion dollars in a rainy day fund?

Rick Perry

#67. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.

Charles De Secondat

#68. Of the powers conferred upon the General Government by the Constitution of the United States much the most important are those given to the legislative body.

Samuel Freeman Miller

#69. Having yet another vote on refinery legislation that uses high oil prices as an excuse to weaken environmental protections and to give more legislative gifts to the oil industry is misguided in the extreme.

Sherwood Boehlert

#70. A question arises whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one Assembly.

John Adams

#71. The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands: for it being but a delegated power from the people, they who have it cannot pass it over to others.

John Locke

#72. Exhaustion and exasperation are frequently the handmaidens of legislative decision.

Barber Conable

#73. The wonder is not that the world is so easily governed, but that so small a number of persons will suffice for the purpose. There are dead weights in political and legislative bodies as in clocks, and hundreds answer as pulleys who would never do for politicians.

William Gilmore Simms

#74. The danger from legislative usurpations, which, by assembling all power in the same hands, must lead to the same tyranny as is threatened by executive usurpations.

James Madison

#75. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt learned when he tried to pack the Supreme Court, the three branches of government are coequal for a reason. Neither the executive branch or the legislative branch should use the third branch to a pursue a partisan agenda.

Dan Pfeiffer

#76. I'm a homing pigeon. When I'm in Tallahassee, I give everything I have to being, hopefully, the best legislator I can be. When I'm home, I'm home. I try to not do legislative stuff. That brings a balance to life.

Dan Webster

#77. The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judicial interpretation and legislative whittling.

H.L. Mencken

#78. It degrades from the equal rank of Citizens all those whose opinions in Religion do not bend to those of the Legislative authority. Distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree.

James Madison

#79. I will not use my legislative powers except in a very limited framework.

Mohammed Morsi

#80. There is no legislative change that can be made to make up for an economy that's not growing and not expanding.

Martin O'Malley

#81. The assassin's bullet: Lee Harvey Oswald created a constitutional space for decisive legislative action, opening a path for Lyndon Johnson to save the civil rights revolution at the cost of destroying the New Deal coalition.

Bruce A. Ackerman

#82. The Constitution is the origin and measure of legislative authority. It says to legislators, thus far ye shall go and no farther. Not a particle of it should be shaken; not a pebble of it should be removed ...

William Paterson

#83. To have submitted it to the legislative discretion of the States, would have been improper for the same reason; and for the additional reason that it would have rendered too dependent on the State governments that branch of the federal government which ought to be dependent on the people alone.

James Madison

#84. As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well.

Gerald R. Ford

#85. The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation.

Ron Wyden

#86. This has not been a legislative process worthy of the Senate. Members of the Judiciary Committee, as I just said, were implored to save their amendments for the floor. Then, when we got here, we were told no amendments could be accepted.

Russ Feingold

#87. Man acts only when he is sure of the justness of his action, as we threw the bomb in the Legislative Assembly

Bhagat Singh

#88. I stand on this rostrum with a sense of deep humility and great pride - humility in the weight of those great American architects of our history who have stood here before me; pride in the reflection that this home of legislative debate represents human liberty in the purest form yet devised.

Douglas MacArthur

#89. The executive branch has grown too strong, the judicial branch too arrogant and the legislative branch too stupid.

Lyn Nofziger

#90. Once it becomes impossible for members of Congress to make a career of legislative service, the temptation to bend a vote for whatever reason may yield to the better angels of their nature.

James L. Buckley

#91. Nothing in the 14th Amendment or in any other constitutional provision suggests that the president may usurp legislative power to prevent a violation of the Constitution.

Laurence Tribe

#92. When we visited with legislative counsel, they told us that the only way to effectively accomplish what we were trying to do was to put the words in the legislation.

Doug Ose

#93. When legislative power is united with executive power in a single person or in a simple body of magistracy, there is no liberty, because one can fear that the same monarch or senate that makes tyrannical laws will execute them tyrannically. . . .

Mark R. Levin

#94. I'm running for governor; I'm not running for a legislative office.

Andrew Cuomo

#95. If the communications media are a good destined for all humanity, then ever-new means must be found - including recourse to opportune legislative measures - to make possible a true participation in their management by all. The culture of co-responsibility must be nurtured.

Pope John Paul II

#96. As Bob Dole found out, you can't keep a positive image while being your party's mouthpiece in Congress. That's why no legislative leader since James Madison has ever been elected president.

Dick Morris

#97. Border security is a complex issue and will remain a top priority during the 2007 legislative year. As Congress works to fix this problem, I will continue to push for strong measures that beef up security at our borders.

Randy Neugebauer

#98. One of the essential characteristics of the state of exception-the provisional abolition of the distinction among legislative, executive, and judicial powers-here shows its tendency to become a lasting practice of government.

Giorgio Agamben

#99. Nothing happens in any legislative body that's not purposeful.

Dan Webster

#100. The death penalty is a poor person's issue. Always remember that: after all the rhetoric that goes on in the legislative assemblies, in the end, when the deck is cast out, it is the poor who are selected to die in this country.

Helen Prejean