Quotes About Legislation

The problem with article 50 of the Lisbon treaty is that it is not substantive in its content or conditions, and only concerns itself with procedural requirements.

In my four years as a state legislator, I went to dozens of nontraditional events - everything from bird watchings to tree giveaways, neighborhood cleanups to self-defense clinics for women - going where people are instead of asking them to come to me. It's how I learned about their struggles and how legislative decisions affected their lives.

There's a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

I'm not one to say many good things about Obamacare, but one of the nice things in it is it does give a tremendous amount of authority to the secretary of HHS.

Politics, to a degree, is about legislation, administration. You can't be there in the trenches.

The Endangered Species Act was designed to preserve biodiversity, not enrich trial lawyers and political activists.

This week I was proud to join with my colleagues to help pass two important, common-sense pieces of legislation that will limit the frivolous lawsuits by trial attorneys and personal injury lawyers that clog our courts and hurt our small businesses.

Detention without trial is history in Malaysia.

Tort reform is important. We need to prevent trial lawyers from killing good jobs.

The INVEST in America Act will make critical, long over-due investments in tribal infrastructure - something I've been pushing for since I first began serving on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

When we are returned to power we want to put in the statute book an act which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country.

House Republicans want to pass a strong border security, illegal immigration bill. We want a bill. There is no ifs, ands or buts about it.

I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns.

My take is this. The Republicans control the Senate. They have the majority of the House, and they have the White House. They can do whatever they want to do, really.

When one wants to change manners and customs, one should not do so by changing the laws.

What the government has to do, if it wants to govern for any length of time, is it must appeal primarily to the third parties in the House of Commons to get them to support it.

Laws are cheap of passage, costly of enforcement. They do not execute themselves.

The real cause of the beginning of the Great Depression was the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. This shocking and totally unprecedented legislation ended up imposing an average 60 percent tax on more than 3,000 import items. It was the equivalent of exploding a bomb that devastated the global trading system.

My fellow Americans, I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes. -Ronald Reagan, unaware a radio microphone was on

I'm for the DREAM Act. It makes so much sense. Following the implementation of the DREAM Act, we'll have a case study we can point to where we can say that we provided a path to citizenship or legal involvement in the community for these young immigrants, and the sky didn't fall.

When the Bill of Rights was written, no one owned a MAG5100, 100-round magazine for an M-16. The concept of a mass slaughter carried out over a matter of minutes was incomprehensible.

Sloppy language leads to sloppy thought, and sloppy thought to sloppy legislation.

The frustration of the Senate is that it's slow. It looks like an aquarium.

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.