No man can be a competent legislator who does not add to an upright intention and a sound judgment a certain degree of knowledge of the subject on which he is to legislate.
Legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests.
We live in a stage of politics, where legislators seem to regard the passage of laws as much more important than the results of their enforcement.
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
The Constitution is the origin and measure of legislative authority. It says to legislators, thus far ye shall go and no farther. Not a particle of it should be shaken; not a pebble of it should be removed.
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
Legislators consistently put the political imperative before the national interest.
When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
Its hardly a radical idea to suggest that regulators and legislators understand the law now, is it?
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change, and not the political legislators who implement change after the fact.
Artists to my mind are the real architects of change.
People underestimate the impact they can have on the process through contact with legislators. By being part of an organized group in an area that you have an interest in, you can multiply the impact of your own ideas.
People have a deep need to be legislators, and the idea of autonomy has become very precious.
The woman, in a battle of fists or guns, may not be as great a power as a man; but a woman behind a vote is every bit as useful as a man.
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.
Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.
That the foundation of our national policy should be laid in private morality. If individuals be not influenced by moral principles, it is in vain to look for public virtue; it is, therefore, the duty of legislators to enforce, both by precept and example, the utility, as well as the necessity, of a strict adherence to the rules of distributive justice.
For eighteen hundred years, though perchance I have no right to say it, the New Testament has been written; yet where is the legislator who has wisdom and practical talent enough to avail himself of the light which it sheds on the science of legislation?
There is no true sovereign except the nation; there can be no true legislator except the people.
I have a proven record as an effective legislator, which I believe is my greatest asset.
The job of a legislator is much more fixing existing law, revising it, improving it, than it is passing something that doesn't exist.
A mood of constructive criticism being upon me, I propose forthwith that the method of choosing legislators now prevailing in the United States be abandoned and that the method used in choosing juries be substituted. That is to say, I propose that the men who make our laws be chosen by chance and against will of all the rest of us, as now.
Consequently, citizen legislators, rotating back to their communities after a short period of public service—considered an indispensable and routine characteristic and design of representative government at the time of the founding, and for a century thereafter—have been replaced with a professional ruling class led by governing masterminds. For the most part, they are isolated from the communities from which they hail and are consumed with the daily jockeying for position and power within their ranks. Moreover, they both pander to and lord over their constituents.
It is the lawyers who run our civilization for us -- our governments, our business, our private lives. Most legislators are lawyers; they make our laws. Most presidents, governors, commissioners, along with their advisers and brain-trusters are lawyers; they administer our laws. All the judges are lawyers; they interpret and enforce our laws. There is no separation of powers where the lawyers are concerned. There is only a concentration of all government power -- in the lawyers.
Some legislators only wish to vengeance against a particular enemy. Others only look out for themselves. They devote very little time on the consideration of any public issue. They think that no harm will come from their neglect. They act as if it is always the business of somebody else to look after this or that. When this selfish notion is entertained by all, the commonwealth slowly begins to decay.
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