Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to have the opportunity to share some thoughts with you during this Special Order hour at the request of the minority leader. I am a professor of constitutional law, as those of you who watch our proceedings here may know by now, and I would like to talk about the Constitution, and I will get there before this is over. But I want to start, Mr. Speaker, with a basic question of political science, which is: Why does it seem as if it is so hard for us to get the people's business done in Congress these days? Why does it seem so difficult that, even when we have a vast consensus on what to do about a particular issue, we still can't get it done? Why is it that the approval rating of our institution, according to the most recent Rasmussen poll, is at 15 percent, which I think most people would agree is a pretty dismal showing for the people's Congress and here in the people's House. Well, I want to talk about this problem in some historical and constitutional perspective, and I hope that it opens up some roots of thinking and feeling that might enable us to transcend some of the paralysis that now besets the United States Congress. Of course, the simple explanation that is often given colloquially is that everybody in Washington is just fighting, and you have got the two parties at each others' throats, and everybody is so divided that nothing happens. This explanation, although it turns out to be wrong, of course, has a long lineage to it.…”