Harold Evans Quotes

Thomas Edison invented a voting machine so that legislators can just press a button. It was a failure. Legislators didn’t want people to know how they had voted.

There is nothing secret in our nation’s capital.

Government is the creature of the people, and that which they have created they surely have a right to examine.

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

The Senate must stop doing so much of its business in secret, behind closed doors…. A bill that affects the nation’s security has been held up for months by a secret hold and cannot see the light of day…. There is no accountability…. The person who exercises a hold ought to be identified…. Secret holds have been the bane of the United States Senate for decades. So much for sunshine in the United States Senate.

The people have the right to know what their Agents are doing or have done, and it should not be in the option of the Legislature to conceal their proceedings.

It's a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy.

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

The better the information it has, the better democracy works. Silence and secrecy are never good for it.

Until we totally change the way we elect our leaders, until we remove private money from public campaigns, lying will be the de facto method of governance in this country.

I'm not going to reduce the choices of Canadians at the ballot box by backroom deals or secret arrangements. I think that's a cause for cynicism more than anything else.

Like most other states, Illinois has little regulation of the economic interests of legislators and relies on public disclosure to keep the lawmaking honest.

The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers.

If we want to truly regain the public's trust, we can provide greater accountability and transparency with a simple step. Let's start by communicating to our constituents about the votes we take.

The most secretive White House in modern history has learned the hard way …that it must reveal a pretty steady stream of secrets.

Legislating should be done in a manner that is understandable to the governed.

The CIA claims that secrecy is necessary to hide what it's doing from enemies of the United States ... the real reason for secrecy is to hide what the CIA is doing from the American people.

Secrecy in government, in the public mind, becomes synonymous with deception in government.

That a majority of people can vote against a government, and yet that government still remains in power does not raise confidence in our democracy.

Democracy is based on the idea that the people rule and that the best decisions are made in public view.

A voting record is your work product. It tells people where you stand on issues, and for better or worse it implies you're there doing what you're elected to do. It's the only litmus test available.

People in power tend to be not as enthusiastic about open records as they were before they came to power.

Proportional representation, I think, is fundamentally counter-democratic.

Had the investigation been left to the government, the current administration would have concealed its own mistakes and blamed its predecessors, That is not a criticism of the Bush White House. Any administration would do the same.

Secrecy is the greatest peril to the future of this democracy and the world.