Quotes About Lobbying

In Colorado, we passed universal background checks and magazine limits. We need to do that nationally, and we need to raise the purchase age, extend waiting periods for gun purchases, fund gun violence research, pass red flag laws, and more - no matter how hard the gun lobby tries to block it.

Big business has no party and never shall have.

My issue with campaign finance is 100 percent disclosure. Wear a suit with patches from your big contributors. Depending on the size of the contribution, that's how big the patch should be.

As a lobbyist, I thought it only natural and right that my clients should reward those members who saved them such substantial sums with generous contributions. This quid pro quo became one of hallmarks of our lobbying efforts.

It is not particular judges who are bought but the laws themselves, through campaign contributions and lobbying, in what has come to be called "corruption, American-style." In some states judges are elected, and in those states there's an even closer connection between money and "justice." Monied interests use campaign contributions to get judges who are sympathetic to their causes.

especially in the United States, it seems that the political system is more akin to "one dollar one vote" than to "one person one vote.

the Mexican Congress passed a law suspending immigration from the United States in April 1830. Austin got an exemption from it for his own recruits, and others too found it easy to slip through the border. Mexico suffered the problem of illegal immigration from the United States until Austin's lobbying in Mexico City helped secure repeal of the ban in November 1833.

Corporations declare more than $2.6 billion in lobbying expenditures each year. "For every dollar that unions and public interest groups spend, large corporations and their associations now spend $34.

Money has too big an influence on our politics in Washington and somehow we need to do something about that.

Campaign contributions don't buy votes. What they buy is access.

America's political system has evolved over the last 50 years in ways that have enhanced the power of business lobbies.

fundamentalist Christianity continues to lobby the government for more support while criticizing Jews and Catholics for trying to subvert the government.

Lobbying is not a bad thing. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't have lobbyists or we shouldn't have lobbying to petition our government. It's in the Constitution, and it's something that should be honorable and good.

Congressmen spend between five and seven hours a day on the phone, begging for money.

A senator will come off Capitol Hill and they'll be barred from two years from lobbying in the Senate. So they'll pick the phone up and they'll call their buddy, the senator, their old buddies, and they'll say, 'Listen, I'm here at this law firm now. I can't lobby you, but my new partner, Jack, can lobby you.'

We also cannot allow Wall Street banks to rewrite the Second Amendment just because they're too big to fail.

After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street.

Every time the good giants try to cut back on salt, sugar, fat calories, inevitably Wall Street raises its hand and is looking at the sales figures and the revenue and saying, 'Thou shalt not result in any loss of profit.' There's huge continuing pressure on the food companies.

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.

The war to rein in Wall Street excess is never over.

In truth, government has been good to Wall Street and big business.

When I went to lobby Nelson Mandela while the post-apartheid constitution was being drafted, I asked him to endorse making it illegal to discriminate on grounds of sexuality. I'd been warned that he might giggle if I mentioned homosexuality.

The first iron rule of American politics is Follow the Money. This explains, oh, about 80 percent of what goes on in Washington.

Government, even in a democracy, can be captured by a small, well-organized class that has little interest in seeing broad-based access to finance.