Political Quotes

“I say to the Senator from Virginia, 48 years ago this summer I joined the national legal services program and went to the State of Maine, where I served people in a very rural area with a whole range of problems. What I came to realize during that time was that the promises of our democracy, the promises inherent in the American idea, are not self-executed. Every morning we pledge allegiance to this flag, and the last phrase is critical: ``with liberty and justice for all.'' That is a promise made to the people of this country. But the U.S. Supreme Court has found repeatedly, as the Senator knows, that you can't achieve justice if you don't have representation, particularly in an age of an overlapping and complex legal system. So I believe this is not just another government program. This is part of the essence of the American idea. I remember being up in Maine in this small town of Skowhegan, ME. I met a woman who was visiting from England. She said: What do you do? I said: Well, I work for this group that provides legal services to low-income people in this region. She said: How is it funded? I said: By the government. She said: Do you ever have to sue the government? I said: Yes, of course. That is one of the things that you occasionally have to do in order to protect the rights of your client. She was amazed that in this country we would fund the legal support of people who might actually occasionally bring cases against the government itself.…”