Sam Brownback Quotations

As we consider the fast pace of scientific and technological progress in our modern world, we must not lose our moral compass and give way to 'free market eugenics'.

I'd pull my little brother on our motorcycle on an inner tube behind it. We would go fishing, we would hunt some, growing up.

Let's create a legal system that can work.

My dad farmed, my granddad was a farmer. I wanted to be a farmer.

We must take proactive steps to promote democracy and human rights abroad.

What I find is most people have a civics book understanding for how Congress works and how a bill moves.

Unborn children do not have a voice, but they are young members of the human family. It is time to look at the unborn child, and recognize that it is really a young human, who can feel pain and should be treated with care.

Everybody will say that they're not opposed to immigration; they're opposed to illegal immigration. That's what I'm saying.

I think we just need to stick to our knitting on the topics and the subjects the American people care about.

At my core, what I think we need to do is to get the basics right again. We need to rebuild our family structure, stay away from redefining marriage, and stand by marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

It is time for the government of China to stop holding innocent religious figures in captivity merely for peacefully protesting China's occupation of Tibet.

Today, as we look back on the history of our nation and take note of how far we have come as a people, we are reminded that we owe a great debt to those who fought valiantly for the freedoms that we easily take for granted.

Immigration is a volatile issue, but we're in the middle of it now, and probably the worst thing to do is to not do anything. Everybody recognizes the current system is not working the way we want it to work. It has huge flaws to it; need to do something.

I always think that the party that offers the most hope and ideas for the future is the party that wins.

I do think there's a lot more we can do on the life agenda.

I'm a Ronald Reagan conservative, I'm an economic conservative, I'm strong military. But I also voice and speak and work hard on the social issues.

The next president needs to know foreign policy and not learn it on the job.

We must do everything we can to be more aggressive in confronting Syria about what they are doing in Iraq.

I do a number of things working on human rights issues, prison recidivism rates, and then I also push and have worked a lot on the social issues of rebuilding the family.

I went to a number of foreign countries, and during whenever I went, I would try to go to an orphanage or a home for children. And I was seeing thousands of kids around the world that needed homes.

None of us takes amending the Constitution lightly. The plain fact is this amendment has been exhaustively studied and it really is time to act.

I think the next president needs to lead on cultural issues and experience, particularly on foreign policy.

Dick Durbin's a worthy opponent on any debate. He's very intelligent, quick. Knows his facts and puts them forward well.

I think the real needs in the country are for cultural renewal.

Many of us have difficulty keeping up with you. ... You always set a fast pace.

She saw the inherent evil in segregation and she had the courage to fight it in its common place, a seat on a bus,

should remain top and pressing issues if we hope to achieve a freer and more prosperous Middle East.

She has the great misfortune of following Elvis, if you will, in John Roberts. We may not have another person come forward like him for some time: just a brilliant legal scholar, a fabulous constitutional lawyer.

Most of us right now are in the process of ... due diligence, ... What do we know about this candidate? What can we know to make an informed decision?

None of us takes amending the Constitution lightly, ... The plain fact is this amendment has been exhaustively studied and it really is time to act.

I would argue that the left has had a litmus test all along that a nominee can't be pro-life. Roe is bad law,

If we're to give advice and consent, we've got to have a full picture,

I don't know at this point in time.

He did not say in my private meeting with him whether or not the right to privacy regarding sexual relations is in the Constitution or not in the Constitution,

He did articulate that he thinks one should look at the Constitution as the document is set and try to interpret from that document, not trying to bring in things or seeing it as a living document,

I think it needs to be extended. We're in a season where we need to accomplish what we can and move on.

It is imperative that America remains at the forefront of space exploration and discovery. It is our job here in Congress to take this report and move forward expeditiously in getting Americans in space safely aboard an American vehicle.

I think there's strong support, strong bipartisan support, to continue, aggressively, manned space flight. Now we need to look at how we're going to do that and how we make safety the premiere issue.

I think there's still a lot to learn about this nominee. The president has had the advantage of working with her for a decade. I must do my own due diligence, I can't say all these issues were overcome in a one-hour meeting.

I would like a nominee with a proven track record on important issues. I look forward to having these questions answered.

You'll spill more on the ground than you'll get to the trough.

To make a successful run, I have to move pretty aggressive early, ... I think a Hillary Clinton, a John McCain, they can hold back. Their name identification is very high. ... I don't know if there's another way you can play it if you're a guy in my spot.

We all on this panel, I believe, all in this room agree that this embryo is alive, ... The central question remains, is it a life? Or is it a mere piece of property to be disposed of as its master chooses?

we just don't know her background on judicial restraint and on the Constitution.

We want a nominee that's set, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg is set,

at the end of the day, we were not given the documents that we believed we needed to give good advice and consent on this nomination.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has been hard at work for over a month on comprehensive immigration reform. No bill before the committee proposes blanket amnesty. ... Border security is our main priority. We are working to merge the best of several proposals, and hopefully we can all agree that we must protect our borders, enforce the law, provide legal means for people to work in the United States, and fix a broken system.

The thought does come into my mind, ... But then I really work at saying: 'No, this is not about that. This is about what is good for the country. This is not about presidential ambitions.'

Them providing this type of information from the White House is almost a risk they assume when you nominate a candidate that's from inside the White House,

an individual of unquestionable qualifications and a long judicial track record.

You're going to get a filibuster either way. So let's fight over something we know what the fight is about.

You're going to get a filibuster either way,

This is a serious matter, ... but I think you go on with the agenda.

This is a bipartisan effort. This is just good common sense. This is where the public wants us to go. They want us to not be so dependent on foreign oil.

This is a bipartisan effort, ... This is just good common sense. This is where the public wants us to go. They want us to not be so dependent on foreign oil.

A lot of us wanted somebody who has a pretty well-established and thought-through and set judicial philosophy,

You don't have an unlimited number of bullets, so you save your next shot and go for then,

This is the type of nominee I've been asking for,

It seems like it's a move that they're making earlier,

It's almost a CSI-type of case. ... You're left piecing together bits of evidence to try to ascertain what kind of jurists that they would be on the bench.

It is time to look at the unborn child, and recognize that it is really a young human, who can feel pain and should be treated with care.

It looks like to me that he is open to review cases as he should be as a judge.

I want to ask her about it (the speeches) and her philosophy.

I have not determined ... at this point, how I would vote,

I'm not surprised and it shows the maturity of the party. They wanted a clear nominee.

Human cloning is the deliberate creation of a human life for utilitarian purposes. That life is created simply for research or for the benefit of another. Any time in history when we have subjected one class of human beings to enslavement by another class has been wrong.

I do think we're going to have to see more information ? not attorney-client privilege type information, but more information of the work product that she was involved with at the White House that was not of a legal nature but that's of a policy nature, ... Fox News Sunday.

I do think she reflects the president, and I think that's the strongest thing, really, that she has going for her,

I really believe, in my heart and soul, that if we would rebuild and strengthen the family structure in the country, you'd start to really deal with a number of the most difficult problems we're having in the country today, in poverty, education, and in crime, but we've broken the family structure up.

If you get married, you lose all your benefits. That's insane! We should give people bonuses for getting married, and sending signals and talking about it to the society.

It is far easier to get divorced from somebody you've been married to for 10 years and have three children by than to fire somebody that's worked for you for one year.

And you can claim whatever you want to of being pro-life or pro- choice, but the right to a abortion is not in the Constitution. The court created it. It created a constitutional right. And these decisions removed a fully appropriate political judgment from the people of the several states and has led to many adverse consequences.

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg came in front of the Senate and was approved 96-3 to be on the Supreme Court to replace conservative justice Byron White. This is in 1993.Now, Justice Ginsburg, it was noted earlier, was a general counsel for the ACLU, certainly a liberal group. It was abundantly clear during the confirmation hearing that Ginsburg would swing the balance of the court to the left.But because President [Bill] Clinton won the election and because Justice Ginsburg clearly had the intellectual ability and integrity to serve on the court, she was confirmed.

Among the most famous of these Supreme Court cases of exercise of political power I believe are the cases of Roe V. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, two 1973 cases based on false statements which created a constitutional right to abortion.

The people believed that while the courts would be independent, they would defer to the political branches on policy issues.

Narrow scope of judicial power was the reason that people accepted the idea that the federal courts could have the power of judicial review; that is, the ability to decide whether a challenged law comports with the Constitution.

I believe you [Samuel Alito] and others would look and say that the role of the courts is limited and it's not to decide political matters.

You can look at founding father Alexander Hamilton nevertheless assuring - assuring - the countrymen in Federalist 78 that the role of the federal courts under the proposed Constitution would be limited.

Most Americans want judges who will stick to interpreting the law rather than making it.

I believe, assume the power to decide more political than legal issues in nature, the people naturally focus less on the law and more on the lawyers that are chosen really to administer the law.

To kill [children in the womb] makes us all the poorer, insensitive, calloused and jaded.

[Jane] Roe has made it not only possible, but has found it constitutional to kill a whole class of people, simply because of their genetic make-up.

It may seem ironic that the judicial branch preserves its legitimacy through refraining from action on political questions. That concept was put forward best by Justice [Felix] Frankfurter, appointed by President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt.

[Felix Frankfurter] said courts are not representative bodies. They're not designed to be a good reflex of a democratic society. Their judgment is best informed and, therefore, most dependable within narrow limits.

The Supreme Court has also issued and never reversed a number of decisions that are repugnant to the Constitution's vision of human dignity and equality.

The court's injected itself in the definition of marriage, deciding whether or not human life is worth protecting, permitting government to transfer private property from one person to another, even interpreting the Constitution on the basis of foreign and international laws.

I stated at Justice [John] Roberts' hearing, the court's injected itself into many of the political debates of our day.

Everybody has values. Now, you know it may be formed in a secular setting, it may be formed in an intellectual setting, but everybody comes forward with values.

History has shown that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg did, in fact, dramatically change the balance of the court in many critical areas, such as abortion, the privacy debate expansion and child pornography.

I enjoyed working with Ted Kennedy.

Common sense should tell us that positively reinforcing sadistic behavior, as these games do, cannot be good for our children,.

The historical relationship between Christians and Jews for most of the two thousand years of Christianity has not been good and it's been mostly persecution by Christians of Jews - not all the time, not every place, but mostly it's been that. I think that's just a terribly regretful thing. I don't see it anywhere in the Scriptures that I read, that Christians are to persecute Jews. I think it's been quite damaging. I think it's been a bad witness.

You can raise good children in single parent households, and many of you perhaps here today come from that type of environment. It is possible and many do it in heroic situations, but it's much more difficult and the numbers move against us in a broad society.

Children of those who have been incarcerated are five times more likely to go to prison than children of parents who have never been incarcerated. The sins of the father visiting the child.

Politics are important but your soul lasts forever. So, you know, you make ... decisions on what you think is right or wrong and then you just go forward.

As I noted to my colleagues in the Roberts' hearings, in a year between 80 percent to 90 percent of the children in America diagnosed with Down's Syndrome will be killed in the womb simply because they have a positive genetic test which can be wrong, and is often wrong, but they would have a positive genetic test for Down's Syndrome and they will be killed.America is poorer because of such a policy.

In recent years, even as the court has become an increasingly political body, the Senate is not focused on preserving any perceived ideological balance when Democrat presidents have appointed people to the court.

I've been around the government system and believe me it's built to spend. You've got to change the system, otherwise it's like asking a cultivator to do what a combine does, it just doesn't fit, it won't get it done. You've got to change the system.

I believe in the sanctity of marriage.

We are at our best when we help the weakest. The weak make us strong.