State Legislatures Quotes

• No state legislature ever built a great university.

  James E. Rogers, Jr.

  Legislature, States, University

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• The real difficulty is with the vast wealth and power in the hands of the few and the unscrupulous who represent or control capital. Hundreds of laws of Congress and the state legislatures are in the interest of these men and against the interests of workingmen. These need to be exposed and repealed. All laws on corporations, on taxation, on trusts, wills, descent, and the like, need examination and extensive change. This is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Real, Men, Hands

  Diary entry. "Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Nineteenth President of the United States". Book edited by Charles Richard Williams, The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, March 11, 1888.

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• All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.

  H. L. Mencken

  Zoos, Freedom, Political

  H.L. Mencken (2012). “Mencken Chrestomathy”, p.365, Vintage

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• I cannot subscribe to the omnipotence of a State legislature.

  Samuel Chase

  Omnipotence, Legislature, States

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• What’s happened is that, almost overnight, we’ve switched from democracy in real-property recording to oligarchy in real-property recording. There was no court case behind this, no statute from Congress or the state legislatures. It was accomplished in a private corporate decision. The banks just did it.

  Christopher Peterson

  Real, Decision, Democracy

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• There are legions of [Aquarian, New Age, One World Religion] conspirators. They are in corporations, universities, and hospitals, on the faculties of public schools, in factories and doctors offices, in state and federal agencies, on city councils, and the White House staff, in state legislatures, in volunteer organizations, in virtually all arenas of policy making in the country.

  Marilyn Ferguson

  Country, School, World Religions

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• No deliberative body is manifestly less qualified to make decisions about public education than our state Legislature. With a few shining exceptions, most of these clowns don't read, can't write, and clearly can't add.

  Carl Hiaasen

  Writing, Shining, Decision

  Carl Hiaasen (2014). “Dance of the Reptiles: Rampaging Tourists, Marauding Pythons, Larcenous Legislators, Crazed Celebrities, and Tar-Balled Beaches: Selected Columns”, p.93, Vintage

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• If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.

  John Dickinson

  Government, Rooms, Would Be

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• I went to graduate school at Harvard for one year I worked in the state legislature in Sacramento for one year. I taught school in Compton for two years.

  Harry Shearer

  School, Years, Two

  Interview with Kenneth Plume, www.ign.com. February 10, 2000.

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• ...Only physicians are likely to be regarded as competent to judge the qualifications of potential physicians, so licensing boards in the various states...are typically composed..of physicians,...members of the AMA. The boards, or the state legislatures...give the AMA the power to influence the number of persons admitted to practice (by) lengthy training,...(and) the list of 'approved' schools and hospitals (which) is generally identical with the list issued by the Council on Medical Education and Hospitals of the AMA.

  Milton Friedman

  School, Dark, Practice

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• How do you react when your own government lies to you systematically about life-and-death questions? As I have noted earlier, the answer is political action in the state legislatures, and one weapon in the hands of the public is an understanding of the pseudo-science and pseudo-epidemiology represented by articles like this one.

  Harris L Coulter

  Lying, Hands, Government Lies

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• Not everyone supported gaming, but we had a general meeting and a vote on whether to pursue a casino or not and the tribe voted yes, and as a tribal representative to the state legislature, I had to represent that decision.

  Donna M. Loring

  Playing Games, Decision, Casinos

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• It's going to be very important that we as women's rights advocates are involved in redistricting of both the states legislatures and of the House of Representatives and that we not lose seats but we gain seats for talented women and our country, but we're lacking behind.

  Eleanor Smeal

  Country, Rights, House

  Interview with Joanne Bamberger, www.blogher.com. December 22, 2008.

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• I want judges on the Supreme Court who will respect the words and the meaning of the Constitution, the laws enacted by Congress and the laws enacted by state legislatures.

  John Cornyn

  Law, Judging, Want

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

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• I'm not the first to have raised these democratic concerns. Many have faulted the court for its lack of clarity in certain cases and many have criticized its recent lack of deference to decisions made by state legislatures and Congress.

  Mike DeWine

  Decision, Firsts, Clarity

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

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• I think our message,the Clinton campaign was very strong. Remember, this is their fourth campaign in South Carolina. Two for Bill Clinton. Two for Hillary Clinton. They had it well organized. They did well. And Icongratulate them. We came into that state at something like 7 or 8 percent in the polls. It was a tough road for us to hoe. But I want to thank all of our supporters, the members of the South Carolina state legislature.

  Bernie Sanders

  Strong, Thinking, Two

  Source: www.cbsnews.com

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• I'd like to see a revival of state legislatures, in which I am a true Jeffersonian.

  Gore Vidal

  Revival, Legislature, States

  "Gore Vidal on the Media and the American People". Interview with David Barsamian, www.sharedhost.progressive.org. August 1, 2012.

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• An infinite God ought to be able to protect Himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Religion, Able, Infinite

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1912). “Some Mistakes of Moses”, p.26, Library of Alexandria

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• Maybe this Democratic president[Barack Obama] did and can get comprehensive health care reform passed, but notice, Medicaid is not expanded in any of these dark red states. The Republican Party may not be able to repeal Obamacare, but it certainly, through its state legislatures and governorships, has managed to halt Obamacare`s full impact.

  Melissa Harris-Perry

  Party, Dark, Obamacare

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• If Jehovah cannot support his religion without going into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give it up.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Thinking, Giving, Support

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.2425, Library of Alexandria

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• In the state of Michigan, where I served in the state Legislature, there was a lot of shuffling of money between one year and the other to balance the budget.

  Justin Amash

  Years, Balance, Michigan

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• We were just at the beginnings of a recovery [in 2010]. And the, you know, whoever is president at that point is gonna get hit and his party's gonna get hit. That then means that suddenly you've got a redistricting in which a lot of state legislatures are now Republican. They draw lines that give a huge structural advantage in subsequent elections.

  Barack Obama

  Party, Recovery, Mean

  Source: abcnews.go.com

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• I've learned the importance of changing people's minds at the grassroots level so that whoever does run will have a much better chance of encountering public opinion that reaches a critical mass and brings about a change not only in White House policies but in the Congress and in the state legislatures and all around the world.

  Al Gore

  Running, White, People

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• In the last two years, the amount of legislation in the House of Representatives and state legislatures has been really unprecedented, that has focused on reproductive rights.

  Sandra Fluke

  Rights, Years, Two

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• An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Thinking, Law, Able

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.312, Library of Alexandria

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