Political Quotes

“May I just make a closing remark. Not meaning to be disrespectful, but there is a joke, a witticism, if you like, that says libraries file the French Constitution under the heading of periodicals: It comes; it goes; it comes; it goes. We have a treasure here, the oldest written Constitution on Earth. It has preserved a republic which is without equal. There are two nations, the United States and Britain, that both existed in 1800 and have not had their form of government changed by violence since then. We live in a world where a century ago there were approximately, as I count, 8 nations on Earth that both existed then and have not had their form of government changed by violence since. If we are to trivialize the Constitution because of passing enthusiasms about this economic theory, that economic theory, we risk the stability of this institution. I make just one reference to the fact that several years ago we passed a law providing for a Presidential line item veto on legislation. It was elementally unconstitutional. The Senate passed it. The House passed it. The President signed it. Three of us--our revered senior Democratic Member, Senator Byrd, Senator Levin, and I--brought suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, which in good time held that the line item veto was indeed unconstitutional. The government appealed to the Supreme Court that as members of Congress we did not have the requisite standing.…”