Zephyr Teachout Quotes

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Zephyr Teachout

Profession : Lawyer

Birth : October 24, 1971

Dependence on private money to run campaigns causes pain to Republicans and Democrats alike - and business owners. It's time we did something about it. And public financing of elections should be the first step.

Zephyr Teachout

If we don't have a responsive democracy, all the debates about charter schools, and fracking, and high-stakes testing, and the militarization of police forces - all of which are issues I care about – they aren't real debates.

Zephyr Teachout

When elections are not democratic, even the most populist discussions become superficial, disconnected from real power; they are theatre.

Zephyr Teachout

I care about dental care, and ending mass private and public surveillance, and funding schools so they can have small class sizes.

Zephyr Teachout

The key to fixing public financing is to free politics from big money.

Zephyr Teachout

Wealthy individuals have always had the capacity to influence politics, of course, but only after two key campaign finance cases - Wisconsin Right to Life and and Citizens United, have they been able to do it in such a large and blatant way.

Zephyr Teachout

After Citizens United, unlimited money could go directly to a corporate entity that can tell people who to vote for, with names and polling places included.

Zephyr Teachout

To be fair, money and politics never work in a directly straight line.

Zephyr Teachout

President Trump is taking foreign money through his businesses, which is in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.

Zephyr Teachout

And my whole life I've been focused on questions of anti-corruption laws, on constitutional law, and it's essential that the power of this office be maximized to stop corruption at the national level.

Zephyr Teachout

In some states, the attorney general is appointed, but in New York state it's an independently elected position. The New York attorney general has an obligation to the people first, to her conscience and to the rule of law, not to the governor, and not to the legislature.

Zephyr Teachout

Corruption is when people in public office use that public office for private or selfish ends. This is one of the most central debates in the last 40 years in law, what is corruption.

Zephyr Teachout

Corruption requires looking into someone's soul and making judgments about their intent.

Zephyr Teachout

One of the things that is so important, critical I think, in reading not just the founders but thousands of years as you put it, that discussion about corruption, is that you can't talk about the problem of corruption without talking about human nature.

Zephyr Teachout

So the job of building structures, building a constitutional structure, is not just to punish those who behave badly but actually to protect people from their own temptations.

Zephyr Teachout

It's one of those secrets that not a lot of politicians realize: The Internet is not a 10th-tier policy issue. It's not an add-on policy. It's something that affects everybody's life.

Zephyr Teachout

The Internet is an important organizing tool. But the goal of a campaign isn't to use the Internet for organizing; the goal is always to win, and to change policy and politics.

Zephyr Teachout

New York has really thrived both upstate and downstate when there are tens of thousands of small businesses all representing their different creative impulses.

Zephyr Teachout

I think a lot of campaigns mis-learned the lessons of Obama 2008. They overly focused on the particular tools, and less so on the fact that the Internet enables a kind of culture of trust to be translated into real power.

Zephyr Teachout

I hope that we increasingly shift power to local governments.

Zephyr Teachout