Elected Officials Quotes

And the so-called 'political process' is a fraud: Our elected officials, like our bureaucratic functionaries, like even our judges, are largely the indentured servants of the commercial interests. ~ Edward Abbey

Millions of people are asking for accountability, for responsibility, for truth from their elected officials, truth about how Obamacare is failing the men and women of America. ~ Ted Cruz

Corporations are poisoning our air and water while at the same time lining the pockets of elected officials with political contributions. ~ Gloria Reuben

I learned that the way governors projected the numbers of beds they'd need for prison facilities was by examining the reading scores of third graders. Elected officials deduced that a strong percentage of kids reading below their grade level by third grade would be needing a secure place to stay when they got older. ~ Wes Moore

In votes cast, Latinos have increased to five million in the 1996 Presidential election, up from two million in the 1976 election. The number of Hispanic elected officials has not risen so fast. ~ Bill Dedman

If your life is bad because of an elected official, then you don't have a life. ~ Dave Ramsey

The term propaganda rings melodramatic and exaggerated, but a press that - whether from fear, careerism, or conviction - uncritically recites false government claims and reports them as fact, or treats elected officials with a reverence reserved for royalty, cannot be accurately described as engaged in any other function. ~ Glenn Greenwald

In politics and in society, we can use our reason to rise above our parochial natures. Too bad that our elected officials don't choose to do so more often. ~ Paul Bloom

I've had a lot of disappointments. I think my biggest disappointment is the failure of elected officials to make good on their promises in regards to the environment or anything else, really. I have very little faith in politicians. ~ Paul Watson

We get what we deserve. They are our elected officials. ~ George Carlin

We, the people, gave the marching orders to our democratically-elected officials and instructed them. We wanted out of Vietnam and we got out of Vietnam. We wanted women's right to choose and we got women's right to choose. We got the EPA, we got the Clean Air Act, Water Act, we got rights for workers in the workplace to be protected from dangers. We accomplished pretty much all of what we wanted when we had the courage of our convictions. That is the missing ingredient. ~ Jill Stein

I'm convinced that unless you have some public financing of elections, you are never going to remove the power of wealthy interests over elected officials. ~ Dick Murphy

Realizing that they can't get their agenda across: against religious liberty, against a culture of life, they can't get those issues across through the legislature, as people respond and their elected officials represent them, so they attempt to do it through the courts. ~ Rod Parsley

We need to use the power we have as women to shape a country that supports all of us. We need to vote for elected officials who understand all of our issues. We need to hold our representatives accountable once we've elected them. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

I really think that elected officials should be focused on how you create sustained economic growth, how do you create jobs and all of these issues that made people - segments of our society believe are really important are diversions politically. ~ Jeb Bush

Washington politicians basically view the People as a capricious and dangerous enemy, a dumb mob whose only interesting quality happens to be their power to take away politicians' jobs ... When the government sees its people as the enemy, sooner or later that feeling gets to be mutual. And that's when the real weirdness begins. ~ Matt Taibbi

But it's more an up-versus-down issue because the research has shown that opinion leaders, whether they're elected officials, journalists, business leaders - it's academics, religious leaders - they have dramatically different views on immigration. A ~ Mark Krikorian

A Supreme Court decision that concessions of this sort were unconstitutional would have taken them off the table and actually increased the effective sovereignty of elected officials. ~ Michael Kinsley

If taxpayers want better results from Congress, they must stop paying their elected officials for failure. After all, you get what you pay for. ~ Jim Cooper

The residents and elected officials of Long Island have fought vigorously for many years and spent millions of dollars to preserve the quality of life that the Long Island Sound offers. ~ Tim Bishop

Conservatives are driven and inspired by principles, not personalities. We therefore seek consistency with our elected officials. To the extent that they are not consistent, anger is the inevitable result, so yes, many will be angry. ~ Chris McDaniel

Whenever I have met with our elected officials they are invariably thoughtful, well-meaning people. And yet collectively 90% of their effort seems to be focused on how to stick it to the other party. ~ Sergey Brin

The job of elected officials is to answer to the people who sent them to Washington - not to scorn them, not to demean them, not to mock them, and not to sell their jobs and dreams to the highest bidder. ~ Jeff Sessions

Why is our (US) government the only one in the civilized world with a stupid, short-term energy policy? Why do our elected officials consider a European or Japanese-type energy tax not only unpassable but undiscussable? ~ Donella Meadows

California had organized itself, not accidentally, into highly partisan legislative districts. It elected highly partisan people to office and then required these people to reach a two-thirds majority to enact any new tax or meddle with big spending decisions. On the off chance that they found some common ground, it could be pulled out from under them by voters through the initiative process. Throw in term limits - no elected official now serves in California government long enough to fully understand it - and you have a recipe for generating maximum contempt for elected officials. Politicians are elected to get things done and are prevented by the system from doing it, leading the people to grow even more disgusted with them. "The vicious cycle of contempt," as Mark Paul calls it. California state government was designed mainly to maximize the likelihood that voters will continue to despise the people they elect. ~ Michael Lewis

Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers - not governments - to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens. ~ Charles Koch

This commitment to truth is something one senses more and more Americans yearning for, just as they are becoming more and more sophisticated at knowing when the truth is being obscured - an irony that seems to elude most of today's elected officials. ~ Michael Musto

In terms of our elected officials, I think we need to ask...: How far should we go with our need to know before we completely veer off into the personal and the private and leave behind any chance of having a legitimate debate or discussion or discourse about the issues at hand? ~ John Lewis

The massive prison-building project that began in the 1980s created the means of concentrating and managing what the capitalist system had implicitly declared to be a human surplus. In the meantime, elected officials and the dominant media justified the new draconian sentencing practices, sending more and more people to prison in the frenzied drive to build more and more prisons by arguing that this was the only way to make our communities safe from murderers, rapists, and robbers. ~ Angela Y. Davis

I wonder how long it takes for these people we elect to forget who they work for? ~ Dan Groat

The people are fed up with their elected officials playing the blame game and treating their political counterparts as enemies. ~ Carl Lewis

The deepest mystery of Twitter is why celebrities and elected officials take part. After all, we all know they can't write their own lines. ~ David Harsanyi

The Constitution is clear, Article I, Section 8, power vetted in Congress to declare war. If you go back to the founding documents of this nation, the decision of going to war was to be made by people closest to the ground - the elected officials - to make those decisions. ~ John Barrasso

I think Obama is right when he talks about the rule of law as a cornerstone of what the United States should stand for. That can encompass our elected officials' adherence to law and our country's return to the Geneva Conventions. ~ Samantha Power

You know, I was a community activist, so I'm used to standing out in front of an elected official's office and protesting. ~ Karen Bass

Unlike in the Northern states, the only elected officials in Virginia were federal congressmen and state legislators; all the rest were either selected by the legislature or appointed by the governor or the county courts, which were self-perpetuating oligarchies that dominated local government. Thus popular democratic politics in Virginia and elsewhere in the South was severely limited, especially in contrast to the states of the North, where nearly all state and local offices had become elective and the turbulence of politics and the turnover of offices were much greater. ~ Gordon S. Wood

Simply because one is Black or Latino or lesbian or gay or whatever does not guarantee the person's fidelity to a body of politics that empowers the particular constituency that they supposedly represent. The number of black elected officials has risen from 100 in 1964 to more than 9000 today. The number of African Americans who were in congress 30 years ago was about five; today it is over 40, an 800 percent increase. But have Blacks experienced an 800 percent increase in real power? It hasn't happened. So, I think the emphasis of this liberal notion of social change by working solely within the established electoral system is just fatally flawed. ~ Manning Marable

I worry about exposing him to bands like Journey, the appreciation of which will surely bring him nothing but the opprobrium of his peers. Though he has often been resistant - children so seldom know what is good for them - I have taught him to appreciate all the groundbreaking musicmakers of our time - Big Country, Haircut 100, Loverboy - and he is lucky for it. His brain is my laboratory, my depository. Into it I can stuff the books I choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passersby. He is my twenty-four-hour classroom, my captive audience, forced to ingest everything I deem worthwhile. He is a lucky, lucky boy! And no one can stop me. ~ Dave Eggers

History has shown that a country most effectively speaks with one voice. When nationally elected officials work together, build consensus, and provide leadership, the American people will follow. ~ Chuck Hagel

But when our elected officials and our political campaign become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn't matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations. It threatens the values of respect and tolerance that we teach our children and that are the source of America's strength. It frays the habits of the heart that underpin any civilized society -- because how we operate is not just based on laws, it's based on habits and customs and restraint and respect. ~ President Barack Obama

The Bible says we are to be salt and light. And salt and light means not just in the church and not just as a teacher or as a pastor or a banker or a lawyer, but in government and we have to have elected officials in government and we have to have the faithful in government and over time, that lie we have been told, the separation of church and state, people have internalized, thinking that they needed to avoid politics and that is so wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers. ~ Katherine Harris

I honestly believe I'd make one of the worst elected officials in the history of this country. ~ Ross Perot

It ought to be done by the elected officials themselves because they have the credibility. And it's not like we aren't willing to help. ~ Jon Kyl

You don't have to be an elected official to be a public servant. ~ William J. Clinton

For all the scientific evidence we were amassing, many people, both in government and in the citizenry our elected officials are supposedly beholden to, were still refusing to accept that anything out of the ordinary was happening.
I wasn't the only voice screaming in the wilderness anymore - but still, not everyone heard the call. In those first few years, it was a long uphill battle to get people to recognize what was happening. ~ James Patterson

Hillary Brown understands that?for our grandchildren's sake?we must rebuild America and, in doing so, re-imagine our interconnected infrastructure systems to make them more efficient, environmentally safe, and resilient in this age of global urbanization. This fascinating and important book should be required reading for our elected officials and policy-makers. ~ Felix Rohatyn

Ensuring that high quality water is provided to all Arizona's citizens is the responsibility of elected officials at all levels and I am happy to do all I can to assist the city's efforts. ~ J. D. Hayworth

Elected officials shouldn't get to choose who gets to choose elected officials. ~ Lewis Black

Many of our elected officials have virtually handed the keys to our schools over to corporate interests. Presidential commissions on education are commonly chaired by the executives of large companies. ~ Alfie Kohn

One answer is that the town's elected officials thought that the project served a public purpose and that the various subsidies and favors were worth the price. But they may or may not have thought this. ~ Michael Kinsley

My sense was that most of the elected officials in Washington - in their heart of hearts - really believe that the system can't be too bad because it produced them. ~ DeForest Soaries

The 'Rise, Rebel, Resist' video is a reflection of the outrage the American people are feeling at the absurd hypocrisy, and overwhelming nonsense and balderdash plaguing Washington D.C. It uses a bit of satire and a bit of wishful thinking to form this powerful amalgam of imagery that nourishes and empowers the living art of the song. Our message is clear: Either these elected officials do their job and protect the rights and lives of ALL Americans or be prepared to face the consequences. ~ Otep Shamaya

This political climate today reminds me of what my father must have gone through in 1942, when the winds of war and fires of hate were surrounding him. We have a candidate for the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, using the same rhetoric that my father must have heard from elected officials. ~ George Takei

Lipton, a professor of history at SUNY Stony Brook, concluded, "In the face of recent revelations about the reckless and self-indulgent sexual conduct of so many of our elected officials, it may be worth recalling that sexual restraint rather than sexual prowess was once the measure of a man. ~ Timothy J. Keller

The federal government has failed us, so we, the elected officials of small-town America, are getting tough with illegal immigration. ~ Lou Barletta

There has never been a period in American history when it made sense to be anti-government. We may not like certain elected officials, laws, or government programs; but government simply provides the framework with which the people provide order and necessities for themselves. ~ Michael Douglas Gilbert

My only allegiance is to my country. The success of our country is built on hard work, sacrifice, innovation, integrity, and confidence. How can you be confident if you can't get a job? How can you be confident if the mortgage on your home is higher than your home's value? How can you be confident when our elected officials haven't given us one single idea how to fix this situation? – Jeremy Lyons ~ Marvin H. McIntyre

History teaches that the overwhelming majority of elected officials follow movement builders outside government when it comes to the new and risky ... Once you recognize it, demand it and reward it, it will happen. ~ Eric Schneiderman

No work-family balance will ever fully take hold if the social conditions that might make it possible - men who are willing to share parenting and housework, communities that value work in the home as highly as work on the job, and policymakers and elected officials who are prepared to demand family-friendly reforms - remain out of reach. ~ Arlie Russell Hochschild

Our elected officials are able to regulate even the most personal aspects of our lives, from the cleanliness of the air we breathe to the identity of the people we marry. Keeping this in mind, casting a ballot is not just essential - it's practical! ~ Maria Rubio

Few things trigger fear and misconception more than economic tribulation, and nothing prompts elected officials to react with more simplistic populism. ~ David Harsanyi

The American people, and the citizens of all Western nations, have the right to know about every single thing their representatives do on their behalf. After all, elected officials are merely representing those who hold the true power (the people). ~ James Morcan

I do think that Americans are poorly served by their media, at times extremely poorly served by their elected officials who are non responsive to majority feelings and cut off to a certain degree from the affairs of the world. ~ Henry Rollins

This power became addicting to many elected officials who, instead of going to Washington, DC, for a brief time to represent their constituency, wanted to hold their positions for extended periods of time - even for life. This growing power and the progressive intrusion of government into the lives of the people was so insidious that it went largely undetected. ~ Ben Carson

Most people don't know where money comes from. Even most of our elected officials don't know. If you were to ask a politician where money comes from, s/he would probably reply, "I don't know, from other people's pockets? ~ Jarod Kintz

I think one of the most shocking things is how little our elected officials knew about what the NSA was doing. Congress is learning from the reporting and that's staggering. Snowden and [former NSA employee] William Binney, who's also in the film as a whistleblower from a different generation, are technical people who understand the dangers. ~ Laura Poitras

We ate, we slept, we formed our kaleidoscopic relationships and marched ever forward. We licked chocolate from our fingers. We arranged flowers in vases. We inspected our backsides when we tried on new clothes. We gave ourselves over to art. We elected officials and complained. We stood up for home runs. We marked life passages in ceremonies we attended with impatience and pride. We reached out for new love when what we had died, confessing our unworthiness, confessing our great need. We felt at times that perhaps we really were visitors from another planet. We occasionally wondered if it was true that each of us was making everything up. But this was a wobbly saucer; this was thinking we could not endure; we went back to our elegant denial of unbreachable isolation, to refusing the lesson of being born alone and dying that way, too. We went back to loving, to eating, to sleeping, to marching and marching and marching along. ~ Elizabeth Berg

If everyone in America can easily see who and what their lawmakers are requesting taxpayer money for, we can keep elected officials honest, end the days of political, special interest favors, and reduce wasteful spending. ~ Kirsten Gillibrand

When it comes to our public services, decentralisation means giving power back to those on the front line - our doctors, nurses, teachers and physiotherapists, and our locally elected officials. ~ Charles Kennedy

To put it slightly differently, small sovereign nations, like Iceland, have choices to make within the broader constraints created for them by nature and by the rest of humanity. However limited these choices might be, Iceland's body politic retains absolute authority to hold their elected officials accountable for the decisions they have reached within the nation's exogenous constraints, and to strike down every piece of legislation that it has decided upon in the past. (...) In this sense, small, powerless Iceland continues to enjoy full sovereignty while the comparatively omnipotent European Union has been stripped of all forms of sovereignty. ~ Yanis Varoufakis

All businesses, including gasoline stations and restaurants, should close ever Sunday ... by force of legislative fiat through the duly elected officials of the people. ~ Harold Lindsell

A brick could be used as brain filler for the political mind, just in case one of our elected officials needs a brain transplant to try to boost their intellectual capabilities. ~ Jarod Kintz

I think that the voters should choose the elected officials, not the elected officials choose the voters. ~ Alan Grayson

The banks own the corporations. In a capitalist society, the corporations have the most capital (money), and therefore they have the most influence. Presidential elections are funded by corporations, and in return the elected officials serve the interest of the corporations that supported them. ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

Nowhere else in the world do the laws on firearms become the playthings of politicians and lobbyists intent on manufacturing cultural conflict. Nowhere else do elected officials turn the matter of taking a gun to church into a searing ideological question. But then, guns are not a religion in most countries. ~ E. J. Dionne

We must not allow our elected officials -many beholden to unaccountable corporate elites- to bastardize and pulverize the precious word democracy as they fail to respect and act on genuine democratic ideals ~ Cornel West

These elected officials pursued the offices they hold and asked us for our votes. We gave them our votes. That's a sacred trust, and they have betrayed us. ~ Mark M. Bello

Cameras are dangerous. With no waiting period or background check, any whack-job could just stroll into a Wal-Mart and walk out with a semi-automatic. Now, for years I've been pressing for stricter regulations on cameras, especially around our elected officials. Too many political lives have been cut short by some crazed shooter. ~ Stephen Colbert

Perhaps there is a simple answer
not an easy answer
but simple: If you and I have the courage to tell our elected officials that we want our national policy based on what we know in our hearts is morally right. ~ Ronald Reagan

Rick Perry said Obama's suggestions for gun control disgust him. He said the real answer to this problem isn't laws, it's prayer. You know, i know you're not supposed to say this about elected officials, but I would pay to see Rick Perry defend himself against a school shooter with prayer. ~ Bill Maher

Part of the problem you have is that you don't have a dialogue between elected officials and their constituents. They've built these barricades, these barriers around themselves and tried to avoid interaction with their constituents. ~ Elizabeth Emken

In his first week on the throne, he vowed to make peace with all the nations we've ever warred with, cut military spending in half, funnel the money to education, and ... oh, yes, and phase out the empire itself, instating some ridiculous people's republic with elected officials. ~ Lindsay Buroker

When elected officials and others contribute to a climate and culture that fosters hyper-partisanship, we've got to blow the whistle. ~ Mark McKinnon

As taxpayers, we pay our elected officials to serve the people and protect our state and our interests. ~ Barbara Ann Radnofsky

It is up to us to change laws on the books like 'Stand Your Ground' laws and push elected officials to enact regulations that hold police officers to the same standards as the rest of society. This is why we vote. ~ Al Sharpton

We hunt and fish or we'll go nuts dealing with the criminal behavior of our elected officials. ~ Ted Nugent

The debt-ceiling vote isn't about what will be done in the future; it is about the integrity of America's commitment to support the bonds we issue. Elected officials have an obligation to maintain that integrity, regardless of whether they voted for the programs that required the borrowing in the first place. ~ John Sununu

Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exist to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials. ~ Thomas Frank

Police officials routinely execute search warrants on private homes and offices, and Congressional offices should not be treated any differently. There cannot be one set of rules for elected officials and another set of rules for everyone else. ~ Bobby Jindal

The truth is that only a small percentage of Miami's population consists of violent criminals, and the bulk of those are elected officials. The rest of us Miamians are regular people, just like the people in your town: We work hard, try to raise our kids right, and are always ready to help out our neighbors by laying down covering fire when they go outside to get their newspapers. ~ Dave Barry

If you begin to give people hope that there is a brighter future, there is a new tomorrow, then the people who were yesterday's terrorists become tomorrow's elected officials and they're part of the system. ~ John Shelby Spong

Every child in America who enters school at the age of five is mentally ill, because he comes to school with an allegiance toward our elected officials, toward our founding fathers, toward our institutions, toward the preservation of this form of government that we have. Patriotism, nationalism, and sovereignty, all that proves that children are sick because a truly well individual is one who has rejected all of those things, and is truly the international child of the future. ~ Chester Middlebrook Pierce

By making the government a combination of elected officials and citizen-backed initiatives and referenda, there can truly be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. ~ Victoria Stoklasa

If something is being done on a secret basis in national security, that's a great reason for elected officials to not talk about it. And that's a great way to shirk accountability for it with the public. ~ Rachel Maddow

Disclosure of private e-mails from government officials has been a legal issue in many states. ~ Bill Dedman

The anarchist painter is not the one who will create anarchist pictures, but the one who will fight with all his individuality against official conventions. ~ Paul Signac

Every word a woman writes changes the story of the world, revises the official version. ~ Carolyn See

Unwarranted search and seizure by the government officials was unacceptable to the American revolutionaries. Shouldn't it be unacceptable in the digital age, too? ~ Heather Brooke

I was in the drama club, and I was one of seven co-presidents of the student body. Students elected me - I don't know why! ~ Nicholas Braun

I think a lot of people start out full of idealism and fresh ideas. And then a lot of times, being re-elected becomes more important than staying true to your principles. ~ Matt Salmon