Quotes About Congress

The case of Johnson v. M'Intosh is exactly why Congress can pass legislation as it did with the Rio Tinto land mine deal because Congress took the land from the tribes, ignores their sacred connections to it, their cultural connections and does whatever it wants with it. Congress terminated tribal status for more than 100 tribes. Basically said, you're not a tribe anymore and we're not going to pay attention to the treaties. The Supreme Court has held that when Congress breaches a treaty with an Indian tribe it's not judicially reviewable. It's called a political question.

You need to fight cases in the courts, but you certainly cannot rely on the courts, you need to testify in Congress and lobby your Congress person, but you certainly cannot rely on Congress. You need to speak out in the media, but you cannot totally trust the media either. You need to work within the academy because that's an influential opinion body. I think that one of the lessons that people have learned in the civil rights community is that it is generally not enough to focus on litigation in the courts.

The Constitution, in addition to delegating certain enumerated powers to Congress, places whole areas outside the reach of Congress' regulatory authority. The First Amendment, for example, is fittingly celebrated for preventing Congress from "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or "abridging the freedom of speech." The Second Amendment similarly appears to contain an express limitation on the government's authority.

Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress.... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn.

Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra has charged the Bush administration with keeping programs secret from Congress. Somehow no one from Congress reads the New York Times, I guess.

When the Congress first met, Mr. Cushing made a motion that it should be opened with prayer . . . Mr. Samuel Adams arose and said he was no bigot, and could hear a prayer from a gentleman of piety and virtue, who was at the same time a friend to his country. He . . . had heard that Mr. Duche . . . deserved that character and therefore he moved that Mr. Duche . . . might be desired to read prayers to the Congress . . . . After (he read several prayers), Mr. Duche, unexpected to everybody, struck out into an extemporary prayer, which filled the bosom of every man present.

I am going to work with people who hold similar views to me inside Congress, outside of Congress to make certain that we come together to stop Trump from doing some of the very ugly things that he has talked about doing.

President Obama is asking Congress to support a military strike in Syria. If they approve, it will be the first time Congress has officially declared war since Obamacare.

In the wiretapping, despite all the momentum for a more assertive Congress, you're seeing Congress backing down, because there are many Republicans and even Democrats who are afraid of being seen as preventing the president from protecting the nation.

The country wants the president and the Congress focused on jobs and the economy. Any regulation that the president promulgates that isn't focused on, I think, is a risk for him, and the same is true for Congress.

It's not written in the Constitution or anything else.... Congress, just out of the clear blue sky, said the airwaves belong to the people, which means, in essence, that it belongs to Congress.

...Jabotinsky insisted that all energies be expended to force the Congress to join the boycott movement. Nothing less than a 'merciless fight' would be acceptable, cried Jabotinsky. 'The present Congress is duty bound to put the Jewish problem in Germany before the entire world...(We [Jews] must) destroy, destroy, destroy them, not only with the boycott, but politically, supporting all existing forces against them to isolate Germany from the civilized world...our enemy [Germany] must be destroyed.

I don't think we can depend on Congress. In the American political system - we have been brought up to believe that the American political system works beautifully; it is democratic; Congress represents us; the President is elected, he represents us - it doesn't work that way.

There are some things that you can always bet on. One is that when Congress comes up with a new program it never works right over the long haul. Another is, when Congress goes to fix the mess it has made the mess only gets worse.

People of the United States of America, your Congress is bought, your Congress is incapable of making legislation on healthcare, banking, trade, or taxes because if they do it, they will lose their political funding and they won’t do it.

No law can give Congress a backbone if it refuses to stand off as the coequal branch the Constitution made it.

While Kuwait is not a democracy, giving only half the population a voice in their government is not a policy this Congress should support and one that I am glad that Kuwait's leaders are changing.

Last year, Congress passed a law that directs the Federal Reserve to set limits on debit card swipe fees that are reasonable and proportional to the cost of processing those transactions. Like most Americans, I had no idea that swipe fees charged to American businesses are the highest in the world.

I mean to say that Congress can hereafter decide whether any states, slave or free, can be framed out of Texas. If they should never be framed out of Texas, they never could be admitted.

Only we, the public, can force our representatives to reverse their abdication of the war powers that the Constitution gives exclusively to the Congress.

This is what class warfare looks like: The Business Roundtable - representing Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and others - has called on Congress to raise the eligibility age of Social Security and Medicare to 70, cut Social Security and veterans' COLAs, raise taxes on working families and cut taxes for the largest corporations in America.

Allowing a non-lawyer to be on the Supreme Court strikes me as a very American thing, in a good way. Another is that the speaker of the house doesn't have to be a member of congress. He or she can be anyone. I'm not sure if James Madison really intended that, or if the wording was accidentally imprecise, but the Constitution, as a recall, simply says that the House shall chuse a speaker.

Democrats may be in the minority in Congress, but we speak for the majority of Americans.

Congress should stop treating veterans like they're asking for a hand out when it comes to the benefits they were promised, and they should realize that, were it not for these veterans, there would be nothing to hand out.

It's August, which means Congress is on recess and Mitch McConnell has shimmied back into the ocean to seek a mate.

Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?

My efforts in Congress are guided by the belief that environmental preservation and restoration are a critical part of the legacy we leave to future generations.

I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world.

Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.

Women administer the home. They set the rules, enforce them, mete out justice for violations. Thus, like Congress, they legislate; like the Executive, they administer; like the courts, they interpret the rules. It is an ideal experience for politics.

Let's not forget that Congress bears a lot of responsibility for many of the problems we have now

I think that Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon determine more of America's outcome then any president or any congress, that sounds a bit cynical, but I think I am right.

Virginia and Maryland attorneys argued this is a national problem and needs a national solution. I'm hoping that with a federal court agreeing this is inequitable, Congress will now act and do the right thing for the District.

In seven years, we'll have the highest percentage of Americans non-native born since the founding of the republic. And some people think, "Well, we've always had these numbers." But it's not so. This is very unusual. It's a radical change. And in fact, when the numbers reached about this high in 1924, the president and Congress changed the policy, and it slowed down immigration significantly. And we then assimilated through the 1965 and created really the solid middle class of America, with assimilated immigrants, and it was good for America.

I think it can be very important for the president to seek congressional approval for war , even though not constitutionally required to do so, in certain situations. It makes sense to go to Congress to signal our national resolve and our willingness to fight to defend other nations or the freedom of their peoples.

That's why we have senators and members of congress from every state. That's why we have elections. Because the people speak and there are different viewpoints out there. It doesn't mean just because we're members of one party or another, doesn't mean that we behave monolithically. It means that we will express our view points.

It's so worth-while being a judge, because, if I make good, I can help prove that a woman's place is as much on the bench, in City Council, or in Congress, as in the home.

Why I supported Keith Ellison for chairing the DNC because I know Keith. And I know he`s not going to take a lot of stuff. He`s going to be in the halls of Congress arguing. But he is going to go out to the protests and talk to people.

I think the most important thing is the American people have lost trust and confidence in the people they have sent up to Congress as elected leaders. And I think that it is so important to reconnect to the people. And I think that the last election showed people weren't running back to the Republican Party. They did show that they weren't happy with the policies coming out of the Democrat Party. But they are trying to find individuals that will go up and be their voice, that will resemble them, that will take their cares and concerns to Washington, D.C.

The argument has been made in Congress that it is slippery slope if you allow therapeutic, what people people are calling therapeutic cloning, then you will get reproductive cloning.

Hillary Clinton`s plan would trigger a constitutional crisis unlike almost anything we have ever seen before. In effect, she would be abolishing the law-making powers of Congress in order to write her own laws from the Oval Office. And you see what bad judgment she has. She has seriously bad judgment.

I wasn't predicted to be anything. I just followed an inner spirit, and it put me in the right place and the right time. I didn't want to be the mayor of Atlanta. I didn't want to run for Congress. I didn't want to work for Martin Luther King Jr. I wanted to work close to him and be a writer and write about the movement.

If Congress doesn't raise taxes, you cannot get a private investment account without forgoing a portion, possibly all, of your guaranteed benefit check.

Every time a Republican wins the White House, whenever Republicans win control of Congress, the Drive-Bys always claim that the message is voters want a balanced and divided government.

In a democracy, hostage tactics are the last resort for those who can’t otherwise win their fights through elections, can’t win their fights in Congress, can’t win their fights for the Presidency, and can’t win their fights in Courts. For this right-wing minority, hostage-taking is all they have left – a last gasp of those who cannot cope with the realities of our democracy.

Well, my wife, Cathy Gillespie, worked for Joe Barton, who was running for Congress in 1984.

The United States Congress, acting with large bipartisan majorities, at the urging of the President, enacted as the law of the land that all children are to be above average.

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operation of the international money lenders. The accounts of the Federal Reserve System have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and manipulates the credit of the United States.