Political Quotes

“Yes, that is exactly why I introduced Lee amendment No. 4 in the committee and why I think it should have been passed. Because the whole reason we entrust the legislative power only to people who are elected at regular intervals and stand accountable to their electors at regular intervals is because of the fact it is perhaps the most dangerous power of government. We can do a lot of damage when we make law. And as a result of that potential for damage, that potential for harm we can inflict on the people, we have to stand accountable in incremental time periods of either 6 or 2 years to make sure we don't abuse that power. That is why it is so harmful when we take that very dangerous, potentially destructive power and we outsource it. To some extent, in different ways, this has been going on for many decades. It started more or less during the New Deal era, when Congress discovered as the Federal Government was dramatically expanding Congress physically couldn't come up with the immense and steadily building task of legislating--of doing all the lawmaking and all the rulemaking it needed to do. So it started passing broader pieces of legislation, setting out very broad objectives, and then outsourcing to some outside body--sometimes a Cabinet-level official, other times a so- called independent commission to do the real lawmaking. During this time period, Congress discovered an interesting and important tool.…”