Quotes About Legislation

For almost twenty years, abortion policy in America has been controlled by the courts.

What I have come to realize over the twenty years when I have worked in different roles as a legislator is that no legislation is as good as the enforcement of it.

Twenty-five years ago, I created the Taxpayer Protection Pledge at the federal level. Then I brought it to the state and local level. About 97 percent of the Republicans in the House and 85 percent in the Senate have signed on, and the number of candidates who have taken the pledge is even higher. It's become a party position.

The government shut down 12 times under Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill. It was only shut down twice while I was speaker.

The cost of congressional and presidential campaigns has been leaping every two or four years. I think this year it will be 60 percent more than 1996; well over twice as much as in 1992 in the presidential and congressional races.

Immigration reform almost happened under President George W. Bush. Twice. And it was comprehensive.

The American people don't want Obamacare. It has been forced on the American people, despite the fact that Democrats no longer control the House.

If you have the desire, if you really had people with the burning desire to lower taxes, it would be done. We know the Democrats don't want to do it.

Public health regulations are often controversial at the time but who would want to go back to the days of sitting in smoke-filled restaurants or cars without seatbelts?

What you deny to others will be denied to you, for the plain reason that you are always legislating for yourself; all your words and actions define the world you want to live in.

Almost always, executive orders are within an authority and always within the purview of Congress to change if they want to legislatively change it.

What I am anxious to do is to secure my legislation.... What I want to do is to get through that, and if I can point to a record of usefulness of that kind, I am entirely willing to quit office.

You can pass all the gun legislation you want. None of it will make me feel any more or less safe than I do right at this moment.

The first thing is we got to make sure we try to keep guns out of the wrong hands. And I want comprehensive background checks.

A lot of people dont understand how cargo coming into our ports matters, not just to Southern California but to every single congressional district. I want to educate on that issue.

The reason I love being a senator is that I can have whatever thoughts I have, say whatever I want about any subject at any time, and that is a wonderful feeling of freedom, and I cherish that.

We have reduced sales tax on food. Now we want it eliminated.

The last thing members of the committee want to do is pass legislation.

If the government wants to stimulate the economy, it should outlaw gambling

I think there are many in the Democratic Party that want immigration to be unsolved issue at least for the time being, because it's more useful as a campaign issue than it is as a solved issue.

Trump has said that he wants to remove the tax deductibility of interest. If he can do that, fine. But I hope that Trump knows that it's not the President that sets tax policy. It's Congress.

An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way [Barack] Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system.

Should a community... be free to enact legislation to say they don't want blacks? Now that's illegal. Fifty years ago it was legal. Is that progress or is that regress?

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.