Elected Representation Quotes

The House of Lords has many fine aspects, but at its heart, it is a betrayal of the core democratic principle that those in the enlightened world hold so dear - that those who make the laws of the land should be elected by those who must obey those laws.

Democracy demands that elected members be able to realize fully the role for which they have been chosen.

When you nominate for a seat, the expectation is that you serve that district and serve that seat if you are elected.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

We give money to the E.U. and they give it back according to the priorities they choose, with an unelected group of people choosing those priorities.

I am one who believes that the people's views and values are represented by those who they elect in the legislative branch and not unelected federal judges appointed for life.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

Some of the state legislatures appear to have viewed the relative duties of the senators whom they have appointed, in a more restricted light than it is apprehended the Constitution implies. It seems to have been supposed that the senators were bound to obey the directions of the state legislatures, and the language of some resolutions has been, that the senators be "instructed," and the members of the house of representatives from the particular states "requested," to make or support certain propositions. But surely the opinion is erroneous. A senator is no more bound to obey the instructions of the state legislature, in opposition to his own judgment, than a representative of the people in the other house, is bound by the occasional instructions of his constituents. They are both elected for the purpose of freely and honestly exercising their own judgments according to the best of their capacities.