Top 44 Legislator Quotes

As a state legislator, I had worked with Republicans and Democrats to pass a number of bills, including some related to higher education and juvenile justice; I’d created what would become San Antonio’s largest book drive and literacy campaign.

I do think there’s a difference between what a religious leader says and does and what a public official or legislator does. But there’s no question that a lot of our legal underpinnings find a good bit of their foundations in the Scriptures.

Instead of taking a very high-paying type of law job or something that I might be able to do, I have been a legislator. That’s what I do. I think it’s an honorable profession – if you’re honest and have integrity and work hard.

Most of my time as a legislator, I served in the minority. So I’m used to getting the heel of a loaf of bread.

Shakespeare did not consider himself the legislator of mankind. He faithfully records man’s problems and does not evidently propose to solve them.

In Congress, there are some who are unashamed to aspire to eloquence, even to scholarship, but the only state legislator I ever knew who would not join in the mispronounceciation of a word for the sake of camaraderie with her fellows was former State Senator and Congresswoman Barbara Jordan.

I have been in more classrooms than any legislator will ever walk into in their lives, and I see wonderful, caring, dedicated teaching out there.

Violence against women is as American as apple pie. I know, not only as a legislator, but from personal experience.

I’ve never listed my education degree as why people should vote for me. I think the average person is thinking more about what I’ve accomplished in my professional career and what I’ve accomplished in my career as a legislator.

What I have come to realize over the twenty years when I have worked in different roles as a legislator is that no legislation is as good as the enforcement of it.

I had always heard that Mitch McConnell was a master legislator and a true loyalist to this institution. But in the 18 months I’ve been in the Senate, what I’ve seen is an astonishingly limited vision for what the Senate can and should accomplish. What a waste.

My grandfather, my dad’s dad, he was a lawyer. He was a state legislator. He was the publisher of Oregon’s second largest newspaper. He was a pretty amazing guy.

I think any advocate who is effective has fully acquainted himself or herself with the legislator they are going to meet. Know what committees they are on, what issues they are interested in, all in an effort to build a bridge for communicating with them.

I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.

And, as you recall, last year, people were asking us, don’t vote on the bill until you read every part of the bill. So, as a good attorney and as a good legislator, I think it’s my responsibility to read the amendments.

As a legislator, I saw how effective I could be by being transparent, posting and explaining all of my votes.

Punishment is the last and the least effective instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime.

Every single dollar spent lobbying a legislator on behalf of oil and gas is a toxic dollar that undermines public health and safety laws that protect Americans. That’s contamination of the political system.

I had a white senator call me a rag head, and I had an African-American legislator call me a conservative with a tan.

In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge.

During my time as a state legislator, I’ve pushed for significant investment in public school districts. In Congress, I would look forward to increasing federal public investment in education through initiatives like Race to the Top.

I like to think I am a serious legislator and trying to get things done. That’s my goal in life, to get things done.

The legislator learns that when you talk a lot, you get in trouble. You have to listen a lot to make deals.

Paul Ryan has been a responsible legislator and public servant, almost alone among members of Congress in his belief that we need to strengthen and save our social entitlements.

I want to be influential as a legislator.

When the size of the group supporting your cause reaches a critical mass, any legislator or elected official has to pay attention.

There’s no conscious plan here; my whole life in politics as a state legislator and in Congress has been about strengthening the middle class.

I’m a good legislator. I’m a bad some other things.

Medical decisions have been politicized. What doctor wants a state legislator in his consulting room?

No public servant or legislator can claim any privacy to take money for conducting their official functions.

I was a Georgia state legislator for a great many years.

I’d like to think I’m a serious legislator and trying to get things done.

I remember coming to this college in the 1960s as a new legislator when a road divided the campus – and it was not fully paved at that – and no wall defined the campus from the highway.

I have no idea what goes on in another person’s mind. As a legislator, I need to be good at persuading people, counting votes and getting to 50 percent plus one. I don’t go back and say, ‘Why did this person get to the right position?’ It’s only, ‘Are you yes or are you no?’

I’ve made no secret that although I loved being a legislator, I particularly loved being a chief executive.

The fact that a New Hampshire legislator’s position is not seen as a career or a way of supporting a family has meant that it draws women. At times, I think men who might be looking for a paid career have known that they couldn’t make one out of serving in the legislature. So there’s a little more space for women.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Immortality awaits the legislator fortunate enough to have a significant law named after him. Think of Pell grants or Stafford loans for students, Sarbanes-Oxley to regulate Wall Street, or the Hyde Amendment on abortions.

Whether you’re an opera singer, a legislator or customer service operator, there is a way that we can find common ground with our audience – be they young or old, Democrats or Republicans, rich or poor, religious or secular.

I’m a legislator, but it’s hard to legislate when my party’s out of power.

My concept of hitting the ground running and being an effective legislator is to focus on my district and having really good constituent work.

The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.

You have to have patience to be a legislator.

I started in the mailroom, literally, as an intern… in 1974. The legislator I was working for at the time said, ‘I want you to get your law degree and come back here and get elected and be the first woman governor.’ I kind of took that guy seriously – I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea.