Political Quotes

“Madam President, I recognize we are in a partisan environment. In a partisan environment, there is temptation to turn every issue into a political issue. We certainly live in one of those environments today. That is regrettable but far from unfamiliar. Politics play a role in our representative government, of course, and they always have. The Founders created a system of checks and balances--three branches of government, for example, and two Chambers of the Congress--precisely because they anticipated these passions. Our Founding Fathers wanted to keep us from losing our way. Long after that system was created, a new, independent Federal agency was created in the same spirit of checks and balances. That agency is the National Labor Relations Board and acts as a check on employers and employees alike. It safeguards employees' rights to unionize or not to unionize if they so choose. It mediates allegations of unfair labor practices. It does all this independent of any outside influence. The Acting General Counsel of the NLRB is a man who is as nonpartisan and as independent as the agency for which he works. Last month, he issued a complaint against one of America's largest companies, Boeing. The complaint alleges that after Boeing workers in some States went on strike, the company retaliated by opening a new production line in a nonunion facility. That kind of retaliation, if that is what happened, is, of course, illegal. That is just the background.…”