Lobbyists Quotations

The American people are screaming out saying it's unfair that the wealthiest, the largest corporations who can afford the best attorneys, the best accountants, take advantage of these special tax treatments that the lobbyists have, along with lawmakers, have cooked in the books here.

I represent poor people, I represent working people. I represent senior citizens. I represent family businesses. I represent people who don't have the wherewithal to hire overpriced Washington lobbyists and lawyers. I want to send the powers back to the states and the people.

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists.

We work for the families back home, we do not work for the lobbyists that prowl the halls of the capital building, do not forget who we work for.

Global poverty is the product of reversible policy failures overseen by politicians, past and present. The poorest of the poor don't vote in American or European elections. They don't make donations to political parties or hire lobbyists in D.C., London or Canberra.

Policy is no longer being written by politicians accountable to the American public. Instead, policies concerning the defense budget, deregulation, health care, public transportation, job training programs, and a host of other crucial areas are now largely written by lobbyists who represent mega corporations.

Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim 'manufacturing' tax deductions.

Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people.

If a lobbyist sets up shop, or a lawyer, in which they're receiving income through what is something like a tax loophole so that it's not counting as corporate income, that is what this is counting as a small business.

Because the Second Amendment is an incomprehensible mess, because too many lobbyists have argued that it is an absolute protection of actions and items never considered at the time of our nation's founding, and because there is a clear state interest in protecting the lives of its citizens, the words must be removed from the Constitution.

If a gigantic asteroid were barreling toward impact with our planet, you can bet there would be at least a few members of Congress who would insist on leaving it alone, either because they would see it as a warning shot from the Almighty or because a mining company with a savvy team of lobbyists had laid claim to the big rock.

We have organized lobbyists in favor of Israel. You can't open your mouth. I can call the president of the United States anything in the book, but if you say one thing about Israel, and you're off limits.

The ability of big money to shape perceptions - where you have four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the House and Senate - is a big factor.

If you're looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get - to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain't your guy.

I was struck by how vacant the galleries were and so few seniors citizens looking down, ... What you saw instead were lobbyists packing the halls. They will do well. Our seniors will not, and that is why the fight will go on.

Most other lobbyists would give up their second lung to get that kind of access. It's not always illegal, but it's definitely a strategy of influence that's unparalleled.

She started laughing at me. She said lobbyists have whole careers and never pass anything and, do you know how hard it is to get something like this done? That's when I started feeling the pressure.

For those lobbyists who immerse themselves in the substantive details, this won't be a negative thing.

I always got the feeling that utility lobbyists could get a hearing any time they wanted to and did, and I always got the feeling that the Committee of Consumer Services was barely tolerated, ... In the eight years that I was there, I was probably approached two or three times by a legislator who wanted the committee perspective on something.

He will not be able to raise any money from lobbyists for that because he has indirect control of it.

He won't break the stranglehold the special interests have on our elections and the lobbyists have on our government. But I will.

Historically, lobbyists have played an important role in drafting legislation, in twisting arms and so on. In general, citizens of Missouri should be concerned, should pay attention to the role of lobbyists in state government because they play a role.

There is a perception that special interest lobbyists are controlling the show. I think we need to change that perception by changing some of our rules.

Lobbyists are just priming the pump. They don't have to make contributions, so you have to assume they are doing it for a reason.

Lobbyists do a ton of information gathering work for the legislative process. How could you seriously consider a banking bill without having people in the financial institutions involved?

Some lobbyists might consider this a lobbying opportunity. But we see it as a very worthy charitable event.

Such lavish travel gives lobbyists an inside track with lawmakers ... and could even be interpreted as building the groundwork for legislative favors.

Part of what the K Street Project was about was making lobbyists indispensable to Congress because of the money they were raising.

Our lobbyists are talking about a new arena, and the development around the new arena.

People are passionate on both sides of the issue. Between lobbyists and science professors, I had to take a crash course to get up to speed on things.

Republicans can point to the past, but they can't justify the present. It is a simple fact -- lobbying is booming under Bush. Since George Bush came to town, the number of lobbyists has doubled in Washington.

Ownership of the Washington Redskins provides perhaps the most visible platform from which to try and lobby Congress, pass legislation, speak with lobbyists and interact with the media in the nation's capital. There's a lot of value associated with that.

Our first priority is the Internet Hippocratic oath: 'First, do no harm,' ... Unlike most lobbyists or industries in this town, we don't come to town with a long to-do list, but with a long don't-do list.

You know there are powerful interests here -- we call them K Street lobbyists -- that are very prone to defending this sort of things, ... There's big fees for defending them on the Hill.

You have those rare occasions when an issue gets a lot of publicity and coverage and that's when most legislators would vote in accordance with the mainstream views back home. But those are rare occasions. On most issues and most bills, the level of public concern and understanding is, frankly, very low. And when that goes down, the amount of power and influence lobbyists have in that (Statehouse) goes up. That is true on most issues.

We don't have any objection to a ban being imposed on lobbyists buying food, beverages or other gifts for lawmakers and their staff. The Legislature simply went far beyond this prohibition, though, cutting deeply into our ability to communicate for our clients and invading the privacy of people who simply want their representatives to listen to them.

The American public loses when officials and lobbyists conspire to buy and sell influence in such a corrupt and brazen manner. By his admission in open court today, Mr. Rudy paints a picture of Washington which the American public and law enforcement will simply not tolerate.

Usually the laws are relatively weak and have been written by lobbyists for the industry.

I was basically shocked. What do lobbyists know about a plan for the reconstruction and restoration of Louisiana?

Under the Bush administration and Republican Congress, the special interests and their lobbyists are writing our laws and reaping the benefits.

While every American knows perfectly well that well-heeled lobbyists are manipulating the federal tax code for profit, this panel somehow ignored that reality and substituted cowardly politics for strong action. In the process they employed limited findings and let the American people, as well as President Bush , down.

We do not encounter lobbyists trying to entice us to sign huge contracts for goods or services.

Yes, it's true that earmarks are only 1 percent of all federal spending, but earmarks have a cultural effect on Congress that is much larger than their cost. It fuses Congress together with lobbyists and creates a culture of government spending as a means to re-election, which bleeds into other areas.

While lobbyists are not allowed to pay for a trip, the parent company can. Which is confusing, because the lobbyist can come along.

When we go to the Statehouse, it's one or two of us against a whole slew of tobacco lobbyists and their partners. You can see that this is a classic David versus Goliath with us going against big tobacco.

Big energy lobbyists may be cheering the bill's enactment, but ordinary Americans had better hold fast to their wallets. As gasoline prices careen out of control, the bill keeps America speeding down the wrong road toward more oil consumption, more drilling, and more pollution.

Congress as a whole needs to step back and look at the way it conducts its business. It's not just lobbyists influencing members of Congress, it's members of Congress shaking down lobbyists for money.

We need to clean up Congress. The people of Western North Carolina want to know that lobbyists and their special-interest money are no longer running the show in Washington.

The rules were suspended, the bill was introduced and the lobbyists began pressuring legislators. The deregulation steamroller crushed everything in its path, including senior citizens, low-income people, as well as conservation and consumer groups.

Rather than educate two lobbyists on all aspects of the flood project, the city went with the Carmen Group. They already represented the larger interests of the county flood control plan, and they had a good grasp of what was involved.

The reason there are tens of thousands of lobbyists is because the ever-expanding federal government creates ever-increasing opportunities for abuse. The more the federal government does, the more lobbyists there will be to protect special interests at the expense of the common interest.

So this is what the lobbyists and other wealthy individuals got for their money. They get their overly generous share of the tax bill.

I've made it clear that I'm not taking special interest PAC money or accepting donations from lobbyists - ever. I want to represent the interests of the citizens.

They think they've got it greased by using well-connected lobbyists to slip this thing through the full House without following the normal procedures.

People think these lobbyists are somehow giving gifts and providing benefits for lawmakers, and that simply isn't the case. If you simply eliminate the practice, it clears up the question.

Ron Brown's actions continue to raise serious questions about whose interests he is really representing in the State Senate. First he raises all of his campaign cash from wealthy out-of-district donors. Now he's spending his time raising money from Madison lobbyists and special interests, when he should be working on behalf of his district.

Sam Rayburn, after whom the House office building is named, used to keep a jar on his desk, and when lobbyists would come in to see him, they would deposit the appropriate envelope with cash.

There's a difference between a fact-finding trip that you do with the Aspen Institute and these trips funded by lobbyists and corporations where you do an hour of work and then play golf at St. Andrews all day.

Why do they have to be told it is wrong? Their duty is to the people who put them in office. Every candidate or incumbent should make a statement that our relationships with lobbyists will be at arm's length. This practice of accepting gifts has to stop.

This current culture of corruption has helped Missouri families see that it is lobbyists with too much access and influence to members of Congress who are cutting these sweetheart deals at their expense, and they are calling for action to put a stop to it.

The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation.

This is the classic confrontation you see in Washington ... because the president now has been challenged directly by the leadership of the Congress and by the lobbyists and by the bureaucracy, ... American Morning.

So far only special interest lobbyists have been identified as benefiting from this highway.

I'm not going to change my views after I get elected, ... People aren't going to have to hire lobbyists and stuff like that to know where I'm going to stand on an issue. I'm pretty much predictable right down the line.

Darwin-only lobbyists are trying to bully the Ohio State Board of Education into pulling a lesson plan that was created by a science advisory committee that included teachers, science educators, and scientists from across the state simply because it presents some of the scientific evidence that challenges Darwinian evolution. Students should learn more about evolution, not less, including the theory's strength and weaknesses.

It's possible the money boys and fancy lobbyists will win, but it's also possible we'll win. This will establish the precedent that we're really all in this together and if you're going to do business in New York, you have to meet our basic standards.

It's been growing in recent years as lobbyists have been closer and closer to campaigns.

I really don't see how lobbyists help when you're working on bids like this,

They've turned into begging lobbyists at best. Most of these guys for the entirety of their life have been the best athlete at what they have done. Now, they get in the NFL, and they are totally dependent on the offensive coordinator to call a pass play, choose you to be the primary receiver and then have the quarterback throw you the ball. They become salesman. After awile, they figure out how to get attention.

So that a database on lobbyists on campaign contributions on government grants and contracts are all accessible through the push of one button.

Mr. President, the buzz saw that your healthcare bill ran into wasn't lobbyists and special interests it was tens of millions of American's who were saying, 'Stop!'

Cap and trade generates special interests, lobbyists, and trading schemes, yielding non-productive millionaires, all at public expense. The public is fed up with such business. Tax with 100% dividend, in contrast, would spur our economy, while aiding the disadvantaged, the climate, and our national security.

The average American doesnt realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists.

It's not enough to change presidents, ... We have to change the way Washington works -- stand up to the lobbyists and the special interests and make government work for people again.

It's almost as if legislators are outsourcing one of their primary duties of drafting laws, and they're allowing the private sector to take over that responsibility. This is a full-time Legislature. You'd think that would be something that, rather than give lobbyists the primary duty to draft legislation, our full-time legislators should be doing.

It's a program where the lobbyists paid and Republican members of Congress played.

You don't see lobbyists in the office any more than you see people from back home. Lobbyists have influence on the Hill, but not as much as you might think.

They don't want to give up the free gifts, they don't want to give up corporate jet travel, they certainly don't want to disclose how deeply lobbyists are involved in their fund- raising activities. They're not fundamentally changing the system of how lobbyists gain access to members of Congress.

The public remembers the bad experiences with lobbyists because those cases are prosecuted and publicized. The everyday lobbying activity that helps the system run doesn't come to their attention.

This was a bill put together by lobbyists without any involvement from scientists from Louisiana who know the situation.

It's an ingenious way to shake down money from the lobby and for the lobbyists to get almost 48 hours of uninterrupted attention from the chairman. It certainly shows Barton's insensitivity to issues of propriety.

There's a lot of these shady lobbyists and special interest groups seeing the possibility that their sugar daddy might go down, and they're circling the wagons. We don't have to be out there convincing people that we're not criminal, the way Tom DeLay does. That takes a lot of money.

This is what members of the media, members of the Washington policy community, lobbyists and members of congressional staffs do perhaps hundreds of times a day.

They're buying face time with the lawmaker. And they're not regular Joe constituents. They're lobbyists with an agenda. It's an opportunity in a nice, picturesque setting to get this kind of intimate access that you wouldn't get if you trooped up to Capitol Hill and knocked on a congressman's door.

I am very pleased that Governor Perry and his Commissioner of Education firmly believe that more education dollars should be spent in the classroom, ... It is a travesty that hundreds of thousands of dollars were previously spent on nonacademic expenses such as lobbyists and seminars, rather than in our children's classrooms.

I'd say he's in trouble. The challenge for the Democrats is to prove that he is more influenced by lobbyists than he is concerned for public policy in his district.

Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee.

Fairness has not been enhanced by the tax code, but lobbyists have been made rich, politicians have been re-elected, and the economy has been made to suffer.

Jack Abramoff is going to testify against some of the other weasels in Congress. A lobbyist testifying against congressmen? How many Bibles are going to burst into flames in that courtroom?

While big-business leaders and firms can be highly productive, servants of consumers in a free market economy, they are also all too often, seekers after subsidies, contracts, privileges, or cartels furnished by big government. Often, business lobbyists and leaders are the sparkplugs for the statist, interventionist system.

Alexi Giannoulias' top aide was a longtime BP lobbyist.

You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs.

Poor people have sh*tty lobbyists.

The lobbyists and the entities they represent tend to be among the most experienced experts available who have direct real-world knowledge of the situation. They are advocating for a position and for a client, but usually from a vantage point of expertise that can be very beneficial to us.

Get yourself a few ‘Dime a Dozen Generals,’ bid high in the ‘former statesmen lobby auction’, and put in your pocket one or two ‘ex-congressmen turned lobbyists’ who know the ropes when it comes to pocketing a few dozen who still serve.

Desperate times require desperate measures. What Lincoln and the Lobbyist for the Amendment and the Manager of the Amendment and himself, what they did to get this passed was not illegal. It was murky, but what they did was noble and grand. How they went about it was somewhat murky, but nothing they did was really illegal.

These were lobbyists—many of them compensated quite handsomely not to react as human beings.

So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians']

Even if current rules are enforced, there are too many opportunities with lobbyists to influence policy in ways that hurt ordinary citizens.

The President is the peoples lobbyist.