Chris Bell Quotations

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

When you're trying to move away from a system that is overburdened with loopholes, you don't replace it with a system with still more loopholes.

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.

There are other chapters to be written about that story.

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.

Rick Perry is taking his ethics lessons from Tom DeLay.

(Perry) has made an awful mess of things. He's proven he can't lead a silent prayer.

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.

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

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.

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.

He felt strongly that there was an effort being made to allow corporations to hijack the electoral process.

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

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.

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.

Penn State is Penn State, and I like what they stand for, ... I didn't want to miss their climb to the top.

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

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

I was very impressed with the facilities here. I can see why it has been called the best of its kind in the world.

Just about everyone in our state is demanding that leaders do something about the quality of education in our public schools.

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

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.

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

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

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

The DeLay story struck a nerve with people all across the United States because Tom DeLay put a face to what Walt Whitman called "the never-ending audacity of elected persons." Suddenly, they could see corruption up close.

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,

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

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

What is realistic is to tax every business fairly. Only one in eight of Texas' businesses are paying for a franchise tax. The right way is to spread the tax out evenly; the wrong way is to protect special interest.

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.

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,

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

Ethics in government has always been important to me.

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.

I want an across-the-board pay raise with a dependable funding source.

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

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.

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

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

A revenue-neutral proposal is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

That's when we got hit with the highest tuition increases in the country. At A&M-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.

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

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.

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.

It seems to me it was more an election-year ploy than really a serious effort to stem the flow of immigrants into Texas.

It was doing sort of a suburban/urban (mix). It didn't know what it wanted to be before.

It's a very strange strategy when somebody offers you an olive branch and you use it to stick him in the eyeball,

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.

It just makes sense, and frankly I'm surprised that they haven't done something about that one already,

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,

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

Democrats all across Texas know we need to get serious about solutions. That's why I've proposed my Pact with Parents that addresses major challenges of our day, whether it's the quality of public schools, property tax relief, insurance rates, teen pregnancy, stem cell research, credit companies or insurance. It's a roadmap for how we can get from here to there.

I want to see how the Arizona plan works out, utilizing the National Guard. It would be more expensive for the state of Texas, ... but if it's successful there, I think we're going to have to perhaps consider that type of plan.

I'm running because the State of Texas finds itself in last place in too many categories.

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.

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.

I like the way that shakes out. I like the numbers.

If Rick Perry gets his way in Austin, schools in Beaumont and across Texas will suffer.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.