Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The Southern Progress Fund will bring much-needed resources into multiple Southern states where Democrats must identify up-and-coming leaders and build a bench of strong potential candidates up and down the ballot.
I love all people. I hate no one. And, you know, when you take a subject and you reduce it to something like a four-second sound bite, and a check mark on a ballot, I think that that's inappropriate and insensitive.
It is downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican government: the ballot.
The idea of 'climate' - in quotation marks - is never going to be the issue. It's always going to be a local, human issue. And so to the extent that you put 'climate' on the ballot, that's never going to move the needle.
Once the Afghan people vote and they choose their President with direct, secret ballot from all over the country, there will be a lot of difference in this country and a lot of legitimate power to flow with implementation.
Let me say this as your incoming chair of the Democratic national committee: I promise you, my friends, I commit to all Americans, that we will have a party that you can be proud of. We will elect Democrats up and down the ballot.
I'm not a sportswriter. I don't get to vote. I don't get the ballot in the mail, so it's out of my hands either way. I can say that in the history of the Hall of Fame, there are no suspicions about guys who are in the Hall of Fame.
What is the motive to the secret ballot? This, and only this: Like other confederates in crime, those who use it are not friends, but enemies; and they are afraid to be known, and to have their individual doings known, even to each other.
Suffrage, noun. Expression of opinion by means of a ballot. The right of suffrage (which is held to be both a privilege and a duty) means, as commonly interpreted, the right to vote for the man of another man's choice, and is highly prized.
Demand the ballot as the undeniable right of every man who is called to the poll, and take special care that the old constitutional rule and principle, by which majorities alone shall decide in Parliamentary elections, shall not be violated.
The formerly incarcerated - returning citizens - often face a cruel irony in America. Having paid their debt to society, too many are banned from the ballot box that could help them dismantle policies that essentially extend their sentences.
The beauty of our democracy lies in the American value of equality: if you vote, you have a seat at the table. If you speak, you have a chance to persuade others. A billionaire and a minimum wage earner have the same power at the ballot box.
It is true that power corrupts. The hope at the polling stations and the actions of the elected representatives, unfortunately, often turn to be opposite. The power of ballot turns into the power of wallet. Some law-makers become law-breakers.
Proposition 19 already is a winner no matter what happens on election day. The mere fact of its being on the ballot has elevated and legitimized public discourse about marijuana and marijuana policy in ways I could not have imagined a year ago.
Is it average Joes like ourselves who go to the ballot box and truly decide who are going to be the leaders, not only of their party - of their government - at the local, at the state, at the federal level? Is that really who's still in charge?
Our ability to participate in government, to elect our leaders and to improve our lives is contingent upon our ability to access the ballot. We know in our heart of hearts that voting is a sacred right - the fount from which all other rights flow.
I think it's best if there's an amendment that goes on the ballot where the people can weigh in. Every time this issue has gone on the ballot, the people have voted to retain the traditional definition of marriage as recently as California in 2008.
Too many of the career politicians, the established politicians in Washington on both sides of the aisle, are representing their party more than the people. And no matter what the media says, the ballot box will determine what people truly believe.
I grew up in California, and when I read that Proposition 8 was on the ballot, I was disappointed because it seemed to be inconsistent with the spirit of the state, with the independence and diversity of the frontier that California has always been.
People always talk about first-ballot Hall of Famer and all that stuff, but it doesn't really make a difference. Once you get in there, you're a Hall of Famer. It doesn't matter if you get in on the first, second or third ballot. It's the same thing.
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.
Prop 8 did something that no other state in the history of this country has done. It took away the rights of people that already were legally affirmed. Imagine someone putting something on the ballot saying your wedding, your marriage is no longer valid.
A government reflects the views of those who select it, and if people are unable to cast their ballot because the voting hours aren't convenient for them or because other hurdles have been raised too high we get a less representative government as a result.
If power lies more and more in the hands of corporations rather than governments, the most effective way to be political is not to cast one's vote at the ballot box, but to do so at the supermarket or at a shareholders' meeting. When provoked, corporations respond.
During the New Deal, liberals recognized that the ballot box and elected branches are generally the appropriate engines of social reform, and liberals used both to spectacular effect - instituting profound social changes that remain deeply ingrained in society today.
Let us not return to the old battlefield where so many shed blood and tears for the right to vote. Instead let us move forward to an era where all eligible Americans have equal access to the ballot box and have the freedom to vote for the candidate of their choosing.
I know from firsthand experience that claims of non-existent voter fraud are used to raise fears, steamroll facts, and overcome common sense, resulting in laws that have nothing to do with ballot security and everything to do with voter suppression and discrimination.
Districts are really different across the country, but the more that people on the progressive Left show power at the ballot box - and reclassify some of the ideas that we've called 'progressive,' but that are really mainstream ideas, like college for all - the better.
Surely these women won't lose any more of their beauty and charm by putting a ballot in a ballot box once a year than they are likely to lose standing in foundries or laundries all year round. There is no harder contest than the contest for bread, let me tell you that.
When marginalized groups finally gained access to the ballot, it took time for them to organize around opposition to the specific forms of discrimination and mistreatment that continued to plague them - and longer still for political parties and candidates to respond to such activism.
Abraham Lincoln once noted that 'the ballot is stronger than the bullet.' Foreign adversaries, who can't match the military, economic or diplomatic power of the U.S., understand Lincoln's wisdom. They seek to sow chaos and confusion in our electoral process to gain an advantage over us.
Once a popular Alaska governor with a modest record of accomplishment, Palin could conceivably revive her reputation in this era of short memories. But it's hard to imagine her name atop the GOP ballot in 2016, when a cast of heavyweights who sat out 2012 will be vying for the nomination.
My generation, we really have to step up to the plate and vote. Tweeting is great - people say, 'Oh, I don't want this or that' - but at the end of the day, tweeting isn't a ballot. Just saying that you don't like someone on Twitter is not going to turn a state blue or red. You have to vote.
American liberals have become addicted to the courtroom, relying on judges and lawyers rather than elected leaders and the ballot box, as the primary means of effecting their social agenda on everything from gay marriage to assisted suicide to the use of vouchers for private-school education.
Office holders are a self-selected group; you don't get elected if you don't put your name on the ballot. There are many people who would do a great job, but who would never think to run. Find them. Badger them. Get them elected. They might not thank you for it, but a lot of other people will.
We pursued the wrong policies. George Bush is not on the ballot. Bill Clinton is not on the ballot. Mitt Romney is on the ballot, and Barack Obama is on the ballot. And Mitt Romney is proposing tax reform, regulatory reform, a wise budget strategy and trade. The president has proposed tax increases.
This is America. We pick our leaders through democratic politics - ballot boxes, campaign stops, and good old-fashioned retail electioneering. It's a system that doesn't work without thousands of volunteers and ordinary supporters getting out in public and making the case for their preferred candidates.
Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.
Our children lost our direction because they have been compromised. They have found freedom at the ballot box, and then they have taken on plastic chains around their minds and souls and mortgage their future on credit cards. They have to learn better - they have to learn the value of ideas and health as opposed to wealth.
When I went to college in 1988, most people were probably trying to figure out how they were going to decorate their rooms, who was going to be on their floor, what classes they were going to take. My big preoccupation at that point was figuring out how I could get my absentee ballot so that I could vote in Ohio for Michael Dukakis at that time.
