70 Legislation Quotes

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.

Dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The president doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground. A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it.

The number of laws is constantly growing in all countries and, owing to this, what is called crime is very often not a crime at all, for it contains no element of violence or harm.

The corporate lobby in Washington is basically designed to stifle all legislative activity on behalf of consumers.

In Islam, the legislative power and competence to establish laws belong exclusively to God Almighty.

I will also continue to strongly oppose any reauthorization of the Patriot Act that does not protect the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans with no connection to terrorism.

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?

We should not use special budget procedures to jam through legislation to drill in the Arctic Refuge. This topic is too important to the public to address it in such a back-door manner. We should be having a full, open discussion of the issue during an energy debate.

There can be no complete and permanent reform of the civil service until public opinion emancipates congressmen from all control and influence over government patronage. Legislation is required to establish the reform. No proper legislation is to be expected as long as members of Congress are engaged in procuring offices for their constituents.

The people are the best guardians of their own rights and it is the duty of their executive to abstain from interfering in or thwarting the sacred exercise of the lawmaking functions of their government.

The issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy, and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal, and have done so for a very long time:. Respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

We've gotten into the bad habit of overlegislating. I believe in the America people's ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed.

People are always shocked when they ask me what I plan to do about crime as governor and my answer comes back as 'Nothing!' Does the issue of crime need to be addressed? You bet it does. But, just as with many other social issues, I don't think that legislation is the most effective arena in which to fight crime. We already have tons of laws on the books. Most of those laws would work more effectively if we just enforced them better. As governor, there isn't a lot I can do beyond that to crack down on crime. Law enforcement is really a local issue. It's the cops' job to tighten down on criminals. Politicians always like to say 'I'm gonna fight crime!' because it makes them sound great and gets them votes. But what can a politician do to fight crime?

Punishment is the last and least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

We have been in recess since July, and during that time there have been a fuel crisis, a Danish no vote, the collapse of the Euro and a war in the middle east, but what is our business tomorrow? The Insolvency Bill [Lords]. It ought be called the Bankruptcy Bill [Commons], because we play no role.

You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror -- the CIA program to detain and question key terrorist leaders and operatives.

While the opinion of the court, by Chief-Justice Taney, in the Dred Scott case and the separate opinions of all the concurring judges, expressly declare that the Constitution of the United States neither permits Congress nor a Territorial legislature to exclude slavery from any United States Territory, they all omit to declare whether or not the same Constitution permits a State, or the people of a State, to exclude it.

In the federal confirmation process, a standard question from the judiciary committee is, 'Well, if you're confirmed will you legislate?' And, with a look of horror, the nominee says, 'Oh, I won't legislate.' Well, what about the law of contract and tort; where do they think it came from, the stork?

Kansas Senator Brownback [wins] the 'bad timing award' for the week. (BROWNBACK): I think the biggest thing really I've seen of Barack Obama is a willingness, an aggressiveness to talk bipartisan, and yet to vote and be hard left, most liberal member in the United States Senate. (OLBERMANN): Ringing a little tinnily in light of Obama's FISA vote, about which the Left is justifiably ripped over.

Next, we must help parents protect their children from the gravest health threat that they face -- an epidemic of teen smoking, spread by multimillion dollar marketing campaigns. I challenge Congress -- let's pass bipartisan, comprehensive legislation that will improve public health, protect our tobacco farmers and change the way tobacco companies do business forever. Let's do what it takes to bring teen smoking down. Let's raise the price of cigarettes by up to $1.50 a pack over the next 10 years with penalties on the tobacco industry if it keeps marketing to our children.

When the principles of breeding and of inheritance are better understood, we shall not hear ignorant members of our legislature rejecting with scorn a plan for ascertaining by an easy method whether or not consanguineous marriages are injurious to man.

Nearly two decades ago, during dinner with the late Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek, I asked him if he had the power to write one law that would get government out of our lives, what would that law be? Hayek replied he'd write a law that read: Whatever Congress does for one American it must do for all Americans. He elaborated: If Congress makes payments to one American for not raising pigs, every American not raising pigs should also receive payments. Obviously, were there to be such a law, there would be reduced capacity for privilege-granting by Congress and less influence-peddling.

I wasn't opposed to the VCR. The MPAA tried to establish by law that the VCR was infringing on copyright. Then we would go to the Congress and get a copyright royalty fee put on all blank videocassettes and that would go back to the creators.

I'd like to work on having every fourth year become a year in which no laws are made, but the old laws are reviewed, updated, or deleted as needed. That way we won't get endless, obsolete laws piling up on the books.

'Any Bill is drafted without consulting any party or stakeholders is because it contains what the Government wants to be included in the Bill.' (20 May 2005, explaining why he had not consulted the Great Council of Chiefs on the legislation).

'The sections of the Bill dealing with amnesty were not plucked out of thin air. They have been taken from legislation adopted and successfully used elsewhere. The principles of amnesty are well known and accepted internationally. We have done the research on this.' (14 June 2005)

'We are trying to establish a process beginning with problems arising from 2000. In the second part of the Bill we propose to establish a permanent national council for promotion of reconciliation, unity and tolerance and that to me is most important part of this Bill.'

Toute loi trop souvent transgressee est mauvaise: c'est au legislateur a l'abroger ou a la changer.

In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official, and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interest of the immense majority in subjection to them. This is the sense in which we are really Anarchists.

Some events define and shape history with the force of plate tectonics, moving the world onto a new path. On September 17, 1787, just such an event occurred when the Constitution of the United States was signed.

It's one thing to have a sizable minority like the Democrats stand in your way, but it is just unacceptable when a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of Republicans in Congress also rear up in opposition and join the liberal Democrats to derail an agenda. At some point that has to be faced. It has to be faced because these RINOs, these moderates, are undermining our agenda on taxes; they are undermining our agenda on spending; they are undermining our agenda on oil drilling, and they are undermining the war on terror - and I'll give you some names. You want some names? Here they are: Olympia Snowe, John McCain, George Voinovich, Mike Castle, Christopher Shays, and about 30 to 35 others.

No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to where our legislation shall stop in interfering between man and man, between interest and interest. All that can be said is that it is highly undesirable on the one hand, to weaken individual initiative, and on the other hand, that in a constantly increasing number of cases we shall find it necessary in the future to shackle cunning as in the past we have shackled force.

[T]he Pennsylvania legislature, who, on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary qualification for office, rejected it by a great majority, although assuredly there was not a single atheist in their body. And you remember to have heard, that when the act for religious freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a motion to insert the name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, 'the author of our holy religion,' which stood in the bill, was rejected, although that was the creed of a great majority of them.

We were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating medium. Nearly all of it is now called in by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will. Lands in this State cannot now be sold for a year's rent; and unless our Legislature have wisdom enough to effect a remedy by a gradual diminution only of the medium, there will be a general revolution of property in this state.

The State legislatures should be immediately urged to relinquish the right of establishing banks of discount. Most of them will comply, on patriotic principles, under the convictions of the moment; and the non-complying may be crowded into concurrence by legitimate devices.

Certainly no nation ever before abandoned to the avarice and jugglings of private individuals to regulate according to their own interests, the quantum of circulating medium for the nation -- to inflate, by deluges of paper, the nominal prices of property, and then to buy up that property at 1s. in the pound, having first withdrawn the floating medium which might endanger a competition in purchase. Yet this is what has been done, and will be done, unless stayed by the protecting hand of the legislature. The evil has been produced by the error of their sanction of this ruinous machinery of banks; and justice, wisdom, duty, all require that they should interpose and arrest it before the schemes of plunder and spoliation desolate the country.

Then there's Kansas Republican Senator Sam Brownback, the former presidential candidate, pushing McCain's new theme on a campaign conference call yesterday. (BROWNBACK): I think the biggest thing really I've seen of Barack Obama is a willingness and aggressiveness to talk bipartisan, and yet to vote and be hard left, the most liberal member in the United States Senate. (OLBERMANN): Obama talks bipartisan but when it comes down to it, he votes hard left? From Obama.senate.gov, December 16, 2005: 'Obama, Brownback, Durbin and DeWine [DeWine is another Republican] Introduce Comprehensive Legislation on the Congo.' From Brownback.senate.gov, May 3rd, 2006: 'Brownback worked with Senators Robert Menendez and Barack Obama to pass the amendment.' And October 26th, 2007, 'Senator Brownback and Senator Barack Obama introduced the Iranian Sanctions Enabling Act.' 'USA Today,' May 18, last year: 'Obama and Brownback together on another issue.' The 'Washington Post,' December 27, 2005, [headline on Darfur policy], 'By Barack Obama and Sam Brownback.'

It would be inconceivable for the House to adjourn for Easter without recording the fact that last Friday the High Court disallowed an Act which was passed by this House and the House of Lords and received Royal Assent - the Merchant Shipping Act 1988. The High Court referred the case to the European Court...I want to make it clear to the House that we are absolutely impotent unless we repeal Section 2 of the European Communities Act. It is no good talking about being a good European. We are all good Europeans; that is a matter of geography and not a matter of sentiment. Are the arrangements under which we are governed such that we have broken the link between the electorate and the laws under which they are governed? I am an old parliamentary hand - perhaps I have been here too long - but I was brought up to believe, and I still believe, that when people vote in an election they must be entitled to know that the party for which they vote, if it has a majority, will be able to enact laws under which they will be governed. That is no longer true. Any party elected, whether it is the Conservative party or the Labour party can no longer say to the electorate, 'Vote for me and if I have a majority I shall pass that law', because if that law is contrary to Common Market law, British judges will apply Common Market law.

The problem of cat versus bird is as old as time. If we attempt to resolve it by legislation who knows but what we may be called upon to take sides as well in the age old problems of dog versus cat, bird versus bird, or even bird versus worm. In my opinion, the State of Illinois and its local governing bodies already have enough to do without trying to control feline delinquency. For these reasons, and not because I love birds the less or cats the more, I veto and withhold my approval from Senate Bill No. 93.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Legislation can neither be wise nor just which seeks the welfare of a single interest at the expense and to the injury of many and varied interests at least equally important and equally deserving the considerations of Congress.

It may be safely assumed as an axiom in the government of states that the greatest wrongs inflicted upon a people are caused by unjust and arbitrary legislation, or by the unrelenting decrees of despotic rulers, and that the timely revocation of injurious and oppressive measures is the greatest good that can be conferred upon a nation. The legislator or ruler who has the wisdom and magnanimity to retrace his steps when convinced of error will sooner or later be rewarded with the respect and gratitude of an intelligent and patriotic people. Our own history, although embracing a period less than a century, affords abundant proof that most, if not all, of our domestic troubles are directly traceable to violations of the organic law and excessive legislation.

As a man of the Congress, let me reaffirm my conviction that the collective wisdom of our two great legislative bodies, while not infallible, will in the end serve the people faithfully and very, very well.

No man with a genius for legislation has appeared in America. They are rare in the history of the world. There are orators, politicians, and eloquent men, by the thousand; but the speaker has not yet opened his mouth to speak who is capable of settling the much-vexed questions of the day.

For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?

I have always fought for the right of people to be able to be treated equally in America. Long before there was a television show or a march in Washington. In 1985, I was the sole sponsor of the Civil Rights Act to make sure we enforced that in America. I am for partnership rights. I am for civil union. I am for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I am for the hate crimes legislation.

'Under the Alliance Government, we minorities were allocated eight seats, then they were reduced to five seats and now we have only three seats in this house. At this trend, we minorities may not be represented in Parliament in future. But, I trust in our SDL-led Coalition Government and humbly request that our seats in this house be increased from three to at least five when the 1997 Constitution amendments are done.'

As all those have shown who have discussed civil institutions, and as every history is full of examples, it is necessary to whoever arranges to found a Republic and establish laws in it, to presuppose that all men are bad and that they will use their malignity of mind every time they have the opportunity; and if such malignity is hidden for a time, it proceeds from the unknown reason that would not be known because the experience of the contrary had not been seen, but time, which is said to be the father of every truth, will cause it to be discovered.

'I support the effort of government to bring about reconciliation and unity but this cannot be achieved through a Bill that has caused so much opposition, division and confusion in the country.'

'I publicly appeal to our President, our Prime Minister and the members of our Government to withdraw the Bill until such time as proper consultations can be held and appropriate amendments made.'

'Touted as a legislation that will promote unity, it has done exactly the opposite. It has divided this country, apparently and sadly along racial lines.' (on the government's controversial Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Unity Bill, which Ganilau opposes).

I strongly support Ron Paul, we very badly need to have more Representatives in the House who understand in a principled way the importance of property rights and religious freedom.

Lobbyists don't even bother going to his office. If their scheme doesn't fall among the federal government's enumerated powers under the Constitution, they know perfectly well that there is no chance Ron Paul will support it.

'No amount of legislation can guarantee lasting peace and stability if the people it is supposed to serve are not spiritually and emotionally prepared to live by them (moral values) and where necessary defend them with their lives when it is breached.' (18 May 2000)

He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers?

The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes:-1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.

The power given by the Constitution to the Executive to interpose his veto is a high conservative power; but in my opinion it should never be exercised except in cases of clear violation of the Constitution, or manifest haste and want of due consideration by Congress.

'Are you seriously telling me that taxi drivers, restaurant waiters and workers at McDonald's will want to discuss these proposals with me? A draft bill is for the experts' --Regina Ip dismissing pleas for the government to give the public more time to digest Article 23 proposals, at Legislative Council, September 26, 2002

Jan Mickelson: One of my litmus test questions to find out what kind of thinking process a candidate has done on this, is to ask my test question. Test question is: do you think that Roe v. Wade is the law of land? Ron Paul: Well, they call it the law of the land, but I want to clarify that by getting rid of it. I think this is one example of the courts overstepping their bounds tremendously. Texas had a law against this violent act, and it went in to the federal courts and the Supreme Court. They overruled the state law, which should have been legitimate, and then came down on the side of legalizing killing a fetus, even into the 3rd trimester. But the fastest way to accomplish this is not through a constitutional amendment, or waiting till you get enough justices to overrule. You can pass a law in the Congress, which denies jurisdiction to the federal courts. So if Iowa or Texas or any state passes a law against abortion, you can't get it into the federal courts, and the states would decide this issue, as they decide all issues of violence: murder, manslaughter, theft, all this things are supposed to be state issues.