Chris Bell Quotes (53 Quotes)

Texas is still every bit as great as it ever was. We simply need leaders bold enough to release its greatness.

Let's get rid of the defeatist attitude in the Democratic Party. We have to convince Democrats to vote for the Democratic candidate.

My motive for running is to get Texas out of the 'Thank God for Mississippi' club.

We're going to have to get past our defeatist attitude if we're going to win again.

I don't pretend to be perfect I've made mistakes just like everybody else. When I have, I've owned up to the mistakes and moved forward.

Someone shouts food fight food starts flying management comes and tells us to get out or we're calling the police.

Border state governors are in a position to shine light on these issues and get the ball moving forward.

I've always opposed vouchers, and I will continue opposing vouchers. Texas won't have the best public schools in the country if we're raiding their funding to send kids to private schools.

If Tom DeLay really wants to see the source of his problems, he needs to look in the mirror. He chose this path, and now he's paying the price.

Spread the burden evenly and require businesses in Texas, where we have a very favorable business environment to pay more of their fair share.

It's shaping up to be basically a reorganization of his campaign in a nonprofit structure.

I think there was some burgers, and I know there was some french fries. I had been in school for two weeks. That's why my parents were so pleased, getting off to such a glorious start. Getting thrown in the clink in the first month.

By raiding the surplus to pay for a property-tax cut, Perry is proposing a plan that is still 1 billion short of inadequate because it forgets one very important thing schools.

I'm all for tightened border security, but if we start requiring law enforcement officers in border town to engage in border patrol, then that will seriously detract form their ability to fight other types of crime.

Ethics in government has always been important to me.

Some people have an ongoing poker game. We had an ongoing Twister game.

Turnovers, field position and key mistakes, that was it. Both of their touchdowns came off our turnovers. We let them hang around, they hung around and seized the opportunity.

We've been handed an incredible opportunity and the trick will be getting people to recognize that fact.

Obviously we are going to have to raise the money necessary to get the message out to the people of Texas. In order to win, we have to get Democrats to unite and support the Democratic candidate.

I think that people need to have the courage of their convictions and not be trying to fool people into thinking that they've changed overnight.

To be honest with you, all of this stuff we have been hearing in the council chamber the last two weeks would have greater impact if it hadn't been orchestrated by the administration,

We need roads, we all know that. What we don't need is to have our land taken away to benefit private business.

This is exactly the boost my campaign needed going forward as we begin to climb the higher mountain.

At the end of the day, you'll have three Republicans and one Democrat. I'm happy with those numbers.

It's becoming increasingly obvious that Rick Perry just doesn't get it, that he doesn't understand that budgets are moral documents, that there are human costs attached to fiscal decisions,

For all intents and purposes, Mr. DeLay has set the agenda for the country at least for the last four years, and probably for longer than that.

I filed the ethics complaint against Tom DeLay not because I'm a Democrat and he's a Republican or even because he drew me out of my congressional seat but because he engaged in corruption to further his plans to disenfranchise voters in Texas.

I would love it if every talk show let me say whatever I pleased.

Having the best public schools in the country within the next 10 years will require putting the schools back in public school finance reform.

Fair play should be a minimal expectation, and the ethics truce prevented Congress from meeting even that low standard.

Rick Perry is taking his ethics lessons from Tom DeLay.

They're not going to simply work here for a couple of years, then sign up to be deported back home. It hasn't happened in our history, and it's laughable to think it's going to happen.

The American people expect public servants to be able to police themselves. But instead of designing a system to enforce ethical conduct, Tom Delay and his cohorts have implemented a self protection system. Obviously, it wasn't good for democracy.

Perry has made an awful mess of things and has proven he can't even lead a silent prayer. If we're going to find solutions, we have to elect a governor who has the courage of his convictions.

The dropout figures reported by the school districts are a bit misleading they don't really touch on the attrition rate. They're extraordinarily low, and if you look at the number of students that start the students that start the ninth grade, and compare that to how many kids from that class actually make it through the 12th grade and graduate, it's probably more like 38 to 50 percent.

This is why we need ethics reform now. Rick Perry is trying to sell a school finance plan that has no new money for schools, and he's raising corporate money to do it.

I guess the one thing he might have done differently is when the guy said, 'You better hope I don't catch you, you son of a bitch,' he would have asked, 'What do you mean by that' ... It was very clear to me. And food fights are awful for your hair.

So many people are accustomed to written information that you really have to have a few more bells and whistles in this day and age.

That's when we got hit with the highest tuition increases in the country. At AM-Texarkana, tuition and fees went up 48 percent. Students are now paying an extra 1,030 a year because of Rick Perry's tuition deregulation, which has been an absolute failure.

Only one out of every eight business is paying to support our system.

Tom DeLay is a gift that keeps on giving, and has been for a long time.

Texas has a lot of challenges, but if I choose to run I will talk about opening democracy to mainstream Texans and not just to a closed circle of entrenched ideologues.

The American people do not begrudge anyone his or her power until they start abusing it.

I have no problem with battling for a position. I have no problem trying to beat somebody out. It's a sport, competition, so I'm used to it.

High-stakes testing has basically guided the curriculum in public schools all across the state of Texas and has left us with the highest drop out rate in the entire country -- around 40 percent.

We can't treat teachers like glorified test monitors and pay them accordingly if we want to have any hope of keeping teachers in classrooms,

It breaks up the status quo and it will certainly fracture the Republican vote and give a Democratic candidate an opportunity like there hasn't existed in a long time.

I guess what bothers me so much about what I now see going on in both Washington and in Texas is an effort to keep people from finding out about the mistakes of lawmakers and then when they're uncovered, an effort to fool people and pretend there was nothing wrong.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Don't store unnecessary data, keep an eye on what's happening, and don't take unnecessary risks.

Packing the Ethics Committee with DeLay loyalists further immunizes the Republican congressional leadership not just from the Democrats but also from democracy.