Arlen Specter Quotes (236 Quotes)

When there are simply monetary awards, they cost the company and they cost the shareholders, but it doesn't do anything to the individuals who make these decisions,

The word is that the justices very much applaud his nomination to be chief justice, ... He has the potential, almost from a running start, to bring a new day and a new era to the Supreme Court.

He will enforce the laws, no matter what his personal opinion may be.

Was the Vietnam conflict a war which should have, as a matter of constitutional law, required a declaration of war by Congress

He might wait until the following Monday, but seeing how President Bush operates, I think it will be sooner rather than later.

It's pretty hard to have a trial without witnesses and if you have just (a) hearsay report, you do not have the circumstances, you do not have the flavor, you do not have really the aura of the trial.

We all have our points of view, and they were expressed pretty forcefully in quite a number of the rounds of questions,

There is no doubt that this is inappropriate.

If we had pursued what President Nixon declared in 1970 as the war on cancer, we would have cured many strains. I think Jack Kemp would be alive today. And that research has saved or prolonged many lives, including mine.

This hearing comes at a time of turbulent partisanship in the United States Senate - turbulent partisanship.

Members of Congress are irate about the Court's denigrating and, really, disrespectful statements about Congress' competence, ... method of reasoning.

It is my hope that we will spend more time talking about the substantive needs of schoolchildren than the issue of attaching political blame.

a window of opportunity at this time to resolve the disagreement on drug-interdiction policies.

It is imperative that the White House provide expeditiously those documents it intends to release,

I don't like it much. I have to have a large clothespin over my nose but I'm voting for it.

overturned almost 60 years of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause.

I'm not sure that 1.6 trillion is precisely the right figure. Perhaps it is, if more of that was devoted to the lower income groups.

Voting is fundamental in our democracy. It has yielded enormous returns.

is to have a dignified hearing which will give insights into Judge Roberts' jurisprudence, and to get an idea of his thinking on questions like respect for precedent ... and his views on congressional authority.

These tapes, which the committee will put on display, really nail down the case, ... It comes out of President Clinton's mouth that these funds, this soft money, was used to promote his candidacy. He says that. And now we know positively there's been a violation of the federal election code.

An imperial president has become more imperial, simply because the Congress has not taken steps to secure its power of the purse.

It's an opportunity to have a different approach of collegiality, ... I argued a case in the Supreme Court a few years back and Chief Justice Rehnquist ran a stopwatch, interrupted in mid-sentence. The word is he was looking for a way to interrupt somebody in the middle of the word 'if.'

If the Senate were to reject the treaty, then it would be highly publicized worldwide. It would be an open excuse for countries like India and Pakistan to continue nuclear testing which I think is very undesirable, destabilizing that area of the world,

Regrettably, you need homeland security, and I think you are going to need it if not forever, for the foreseeable future,

I certainly would not want to see a situation evolve where some intervening event occurred which might have been prevented had Congress acted more promptly,

In the interview, Specter said his November promise in no way constrains him from questioning Roberts closely and running the hearing as he sees fit. The president and I have discussed this directly, what he views as the chairman's role, ... it'd be grossly inappropriate to make a commitment on votes under any circumstance.

It simply wasn't possible to accommodate the schedule that the White House wanted.

I found it was easier to get out of bed than to stay in bed, so I got out of bed and went about my business,

Specter's most surprising move in preparing for the hearing came on Aug. 8, when he used a letter to Roberts to assail the current Supreme Court on matters in which the nominee had no hand. Members of Congress are irate about the Court's denigrating and, really, disrespectful statement's about Congress's competence, ... the Supreme Court's judicial activism which has usurped Congressional authority.

As the president ponders the nominee to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, it is my hope that there will be a balance maintained on the court.

I think that is probably a good idea, That's something that we could look into.

I'm going to listen to what he says and I'm going to respond to it the best I can,

There's nothing in his dissent which suggests disagreement with the underlying decision of Roe V. Wade,

We start off with the basic fact that the Democrats have filibustered and you can expect them to filibuster if the nominees are not within the broad range of acceptability, ... And I think there is a very broad range of presidential discretion. But there

I hope we do not come back to the terrible schism we had, ... That just about tore the Senate apart, and it has the potential to do it again, except that the stakes would be bigger. You are talking about the Supreme Court.

Somatic cell nuclear transfer does not relate to cloning, and the people who call it therapeutic cloning are creating a lot of confusion, because it is not cloning at all, and it certainly is not reproductive cloning,

You can't open up the paper or turn on the TV without hearing (about) public concern about the Patriot Act,

(I) continue to believe that censure is really not worth a tinker's damn. We are going to be listening to evidence to decide what to do in a fair and impartial, judicious way.

It's inexcusable ... clearly and categorically wrong.

I think there needs to be a collegial, modest approach to try to bring the court together so that we have some idea of continuity and what these decisions mean and their staying power,

I have felt that this is a matter that ought to be undertaken with the federal government behind these kinds of prosecutions. It is a signal to the haters in America.

I know that the president will listen to what Senator Frist has to say. I'm not saying he's going to agree with it. But what Senator Frist has had to say is weighty, and I think may bring us all together on this issue.

What is happening is escalating, and then there is escalating beyond that. I go back to 1987, when the Democrats won control of the Senate, President Reagan's last two years, and it was tough, but not nearly as tough as it became later.

The president's fiscal year '07 budget proposal is going to require substantial modifications by the Congress.

I would hope that the chief justice would work for consensus,

is not worth a tinker's damn.

If you are going to have to play defense all the time, you cannot have the kind of ingenuity, assertiveness, independence, and intelligence which is what has made our country strong.

You don't have the votes in the House of Representatives to overcome a presidential veto.

He's an able fellow, but we just went through a tough confirmation hearing, and my sense is that the national interest would be best served if he stayed in that job right now,

As I think through the issue of funding the rebuilding of Iraq, I think about the analogy of a bankruptcy proceeding. There is no doubt that Iraq as a country is bankrupt.