Parliamentary Tactics Quotes

The Senate has unlimited debate; in the House, debate is ruthlessly circumscribed. There is frequent discussion as to which technique most effectively frustrates democratic process.

When I'm in office I always keep Members of Parliament talking. If they stopped they might start thinking.

The history of Congress shows that once parliamentary tools become big enough obstacles for the majority party, they are abolished or reformed.

All is fair in love and war and Parliamentary procedure.

There is little doubt that, until 1846 when he helped to engineer the resignation of Robert Peel, Disraeli was driven by an ambition to make his mark rather than by any consistent political purpose, and that his attacks on Peel would have not have been so mounted had he been given in 1841 the office for which he had asked.

Our boys [the communists] not only attended all the union educational classes … but also took lessons in speaking from Party experts. We were also trained in the fine points of parliamentary trickery … We raised points of order, points of information, divisions of the house, objection to consideration of the question, amendments to amendments, and appeals from the decision of the chair in endless and swift succession.

Lord Cranborne told the leader of the opposition to 'back me or sack me' - he succeeded in doing both.

Filibuster is a harsh word. I prefer to offer amendments and let others filibuster.

I believe the president wants this bill, and I know he's taken some steps to bring it about, ... The reality is that with a majority of the members of the House ready to vote for this bill, the speaker refused to call a roll call.

We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come.

Harry Reid employed the so-called nuclear option, broke the Senate rules to change the Senate rules, lowered the threshold for confirmation from 60 votes to 51 votes. And it is a direct result of Harry Reid that we now have the most conservative Cabinet in decades.