Quotes About Lawmakers

Once the country voted for Brexit, I wanted the prime minister to make a success of it, but I knew that unpicking 45 years of entwinement with the E.U. would be impossible without our elected lawmakers being fully involved.

We love the ability of the people to influence the actions of decision-makers, of lawmakers and presidents to be removed from or elevated to office by the will of voters, and of the community to connect amongst diverse populations through the ballot box.

Congress has an obligation to make controversial decisions on how to handle undocumented immigration. Lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle have refused to take the tough votes on the issue for decades. Whether it's been to take advantage of cheap labor or for political purposes, both sides are guilty.

Lawmakers imagine they can be political heroes by voting for budgets that slash scientific research by 20 percent, but they inhibit our ability to respond to health crises.

Hate crime and hate speech must not be tolerated. Our policy and lawmakers and those who uphold the law must protect the most vulnerable in our society.

The American people are much more practical than Republican lawmakers on equal pay, on the minimum wage, on same-sex marriage, and on basic civil rights.

Lawmakers who support CISA will tell you the bill includes some privacy protections. They're right. But these 'protections' are superficial and include broad loopholes that are so far-reaching as to render the protections meaningless.

As lawmakers, our job is to listen to our constituents. If our phones are ringing off the hook with people demanding to know where we stand on an issue, we pay attention.

Wall Street banks have the right to express their views to lawmakers and regulators through lobbying, but the law is clear: If they want to influence lawmakers, they must disclose their lobbying expenditures.

It seems like when I was growing up there was more compromise, wanting to work with each other, and I think all of them - all of the lawmakers - have hearts to do what's right, and they all are passionate about it.

Money often determines not only who gets elected, but what gets done. Which voices do lawmakers listen to, the banks or home owners, coal companies, or asthma sufferers, the CEOs or the unemployed?

If I studied all my life, I couldn't think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

Here's the perversity of Wall Street's psychology: The more Wall Street is convinced that Washington will act rationally and raise the debt ceiling, most likely at the 11th hour, the less pressure there will be on lawmakers to reach an agreement. That will make it more likely a deal isn't reached.

The groups who spend the most on lobbying lawmakers in Washington are well-known: ExxonMobil, Boeing, AT&T, General Electric.

In the U.S. you have a system of lobbying and influence on our policy and law makers which is incredibly pronounced. The gas industry spent $250 million getting an exemption from our Safe Water Act. Every one of those dollars is toxic; a contaminant in our political system. It disrupts the normal flow of justice, science, fact and reporting.

I'm knocking our pitiful, pathetic lawmakers.

Ohio, lawmakers have taken money from TANF, the welfare program that supports poor families, and given it to so-called crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) whose mission is to discourage pregnant women from having abortions. (That's right: Embryos and fetuses deserve government support, not the actual, living children they may become.)

Keeping our children safe is not only an area where both political parties can find common ground, but as lawmakers, it is our moral obligation.

Judges should always behave judicially by adjudicating, never politically by legislating. I leave policy to policymakers. They're preeminent, but they're not omnipotent. In other words, lawmakers decide if laws pass, but judges decide if laws pass muster.

You should go to the polls, organize yourself. But once lawmakers are chosen, they must be respected.

It's lawmakers know better than anyone that laws are more a matter of practical compromise than any kind of moral imperative.

lawmakers are often lawyers themselves, notoriously bereft of ideas.

As federal lawmakers, we have a responsibility to set a precedent for energy efficient practices.

Around the nation, lawmakers have drawn up their districts with such perverse precision and aversion to competition, that legislators rarely face competitive challenges.