Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
You can see the absence of women in governing bodies from Congress to state legislators, on corporate boards, in tenured positions in academia, and as forepeople in factories.
As legislators and as Members of Congress, it is our obligation to speak up for those who are being ignored in our society. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) does just that.
I'm wary when legislators say the solution to school shootings is mental health care, because it suggests that people who are mentally ill are violent, and that's just not true.
The 'Occupy' movement seems to have found a central theme to its 2012 movement around overturning 'the corporation as a person,' and some legislators are supporting that concept.
From the very beginning, Americans have refused to tolerate unchecked power. We must now press our legislators to protect us from the unchecked power of dominant digital platforms.
Let us tell our legislators in advance, that this is a right, restraints on which, we will not, cannot bear; and that every attempt to restrain it is a palpable wrong on God and man.
It has now become a very common sentiment, that there is some deep and radical wrong somewhere, and that legislators have proved themselves incapable of discovering, or, of remedying it.
In 1984, I gave a speech at Notre Dame titled 'Religious Belief and Public Morality.' I said that Catholic legislators will live by the laws of the church because we want to stay in the club.
Congress has shortchanged not only foreign aid but foreign policy. A mistaken notion that diplomats are unimportant and hence undeserving of support grips conservative legislators, especially.
When public spending in the form of transfer payments makes various services and benefits free of charge, work is discouraged. Yet it is precisely Social Security that legislators fear to cut.
William Andrews Clark was caught in a bribery scandal during a campaign for the U.S. Senate - he was said to describe the Montana legislators this way: 'I never bought a man who wasn't for sale.'
The basic architecture of Dodd-Frank makes sense. At the same time, as a number of regulators and legislators have observed, the act was a complex effort that produced thousands of pages of rules.
This source of corruption, alas, is inherent in the democratic system itself, and it can only be controlled, if at all, by finding ways to encourage legislators to subordinate ambition to principle.
We are legislators, not public works contractors. People look up to us to make serious laws that could change the lives of a great number of people or could change the way society is run or managed.
Through educational programs, community engagement and legislative efforts, players, owners and the NFL are working with law enforcement, advocacy groups and legislators to transform our communities.
Energy and environmental regulation, transportation, and broadband policy all benefit when legislators have a basic grounding in the technical concepts behind business models, products, and innovation.
What Washington desperately needs now are citizen legislators that are dedicated to leading a free people and to maintain our God-given right to the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
What is the harm of doing the right thing? What is the harm of doing our job as legislators and making sure we do not stick the entire bankruptcy community with these provisions that do not make any sense?
It's the reckless ideas put forward by the NRA's leadership, and pushed through by fearful legislators, that have allowed systemic gun violence to expand, wreaking havoc on communities of color for decades.
In reality, everybody in Congress is a stand-in for some kind of lobbyist. In many cases it's difficult to tell whether it's the companies that are lobbying the legislators or whether it's the other way around.
Sometimes evil is in the form of a malignant clown, and sometimes evil is in the form of policy and legislators, and sometimes it's a grinning death mask and it has something more viscerally terrifying about it.
Amendments occupy a great deal of most legislators' time, particularly those lawmakers in the minority. Members of Congress do author major bills, but more commonly they make minor adjustments to the bigger bill.
The Constitution overrides a statute, but a statute, if consistent with the Constitution, overrides the law of judges. In this sense, judge-made law is secondary and subordinate to the law that is made by legislators.
We have to continue to raise awareness as the Voting Rights Caucus... make sure people call into their state legislators. Let us know that they've decided they weren't going to vote because they heard it was a hassle.
People underestimate the impact they can have on the process through contact with legislators. By being part of an organized group in an area that you have an interest in, you can multiply the impact of your own ideas.
Ideally citizens are to think of themselves as if they were legislators and ask themselves what statutes, supported by what reasons satisfying the criterion of reciprocity, they would think is most reasonable to enact.
Our nation was founded with a bunch of founding legislators who joined together to move our country out of the blocks and get us started, and every generation since then has found a way to advance the ball down the field.
In the U.S., free speech and the press are protected by the First Amendment. It has a clarity unmatched by modern legislators and declares that 'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or the press.'
I am strongly pro-life, and I am not pro-gay marriage. I believe the issue of marriage must be decided by the states and by the people in the states - not by judges and not even by legislators, but by the people themselves.
I've been not only articulating the dissatisfaction with Albany, I've been acting on it. I've been very aggressive in bringing public integrity cases and public corruption cases and bringing cases against sitting legislators.
Let me make it clear: The Disbursement Allocation Program is not pork barrel. Of the DAP releases in 2011 and 2012, only nine percent was disbursed for projects suggested by legislators. The DAP is not theft. Theft is illegal.
I have done things politically, and I've been running a business at the same time, but I sort of joke that to some extent I do more than most legislators have done in their whole careers, and I've been doing it as a part-time job.
In Maine, we are fortunate to have a Clean Elections system that allows legislators to turn down corporate special interest money. At the national level, Congress should follow Maine's example by empowering the voices of small donors.
The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
There are no tests similar to SATs to tell us how much undergraduates know. State legislators, who appropriate billions of dollars each year to higher education, are naturally interested in finding out what they are getting for their money.
Henry M. Jackson, congressman and senator from 1941 until his death in 1983, achieved far greater renown than most legislators, ran for president in 1972 and 1976, and was for much of the 1970s and 1980s one of the most powerful men in America.
'Fairness' can be an important quality for legislators to consider when they are passing public policies. But it is a subjective standard. And it has no place among judges on a court - whose duty is to dispassionately judge a law's constitutionality.
When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
The constant need for special waivers is symptomatic of poorly written public policy. It's a signal that the cost of compliance is unreasonably high; the benefits are hard to measure; and either legislators or regulators have failed to do their homework.
I am proud to join the many state legislators, governors, businessmen and hard-working Americans who have worked to build support and momentum for the idea of the Health Care Compact, and I am proud to introduce the common-sense bill for this sensible solution.
While the debate over banned books usually seems to happen just outside the gates of government, it takes on a new danger and urgency when legislators get involved. Their actions cause voices to be silenced both inside and outside the books. That's un-American.
I remember when I was a young social worker, the first time I went to the state capital in Arizona, where I eventually served for seven years, I was so nervous to go and lobby my state legislators. Because I only had a master's degree at the time in social work.
Those who have heard or read anything from me on the subject, know that one of the principal points insisted on is, the forming of societies or any other artificial combinations IS the first, greatest, and most fatal mistake ever committed by legislators and by reformers.
Merchandise from Wal-Mart has become as ubiquitous as the water supply. Yet, still, the company is rebuked and reviled by anyone claiming a social conscience and is lambasted by legislators as if its bad behavior places it somewhere between investment bankers and the Taliban.
Florida is one of the first states that sort of gives the legislature a very clear criteria for re-drawing electoral district maps. Basically, all the criteria do is tell the legislators that you can't draw a seat that helps yourself or a political party. That's really critical.
Legislators and judges are necessarily exposed to all the temptations of money, fame, and power, to induce them to disregard justice between parties, and sell the rights, and violate the liberties of the people. Jurors, on the other hand, are exposed to none of these temptations.
Although I am proud of all supporters, especially those legislators who have had the guts to buck the party and support me, there are some supporters who risk more than their political careers. They risk the wrath of extremists and even their livelihood for publicly supporting me.
At a time when special interest money is being showered on legislators in Washington, grassroots donors offer members of Congress a refreshing independence. The $25 and $50 donor is not looking for special favors. He or she is simply expecting their Congressman to go do the right thing.
Growth requires risk-taking. If you want to dampen risk and make sure you never have a problem, you do so, but that also will have an effect on growth. This is a decision that doesn't necessarily belong to financial institutions. It belongs to regulators and legislators who represent the body politic.
Jon Kyl did a really good job of presenting a case and moving issues. John McCain probably is one of the more effective legislators, getting things on through the process. I always thought, too - and this may seem kind of odd - Richard Shelby was just an effective guy a lot of times at stopping things.