Zephyr Teachout Quotes

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Zephyr Teachout

Profession : Lawyer

Birth : October 24, 1971

Politicians are expected to spend half their time talking to funders and to keep them happy. Given this context, it's not hard to see how a bribery charge can feel like a technical argument instead of a moral one.

Zephyr Teachout

The structure of private campaign finance has essentially pre-corrupted our politicians, so that they can't even recognize explicit bribery because it feels the same as what they do every day.

Zephyr Teachout

We need to ban outside income for elected officials. Transparency alone is not enough; it doesn't solve the problem of creating outside dependencies.

Zephyr Teachout

Women are routinely demeaned, dismissed, discouraged and assaulted. Too many women's careers are stymied or ended because of harassment and abuse. In politics, where I have worked much of my adult life, this behavior is rampant.

Zephyr Teachout

My first job out of law school was representing people on death row in North Carolina, where I often saw the impact of hasty prosecutions.

Zephyr Teachout

I represented a man on death row whose lawyers had spent all of eight hours looking into his claim of innocence. I met men whose lawyers had never looked into their backgrounds.

Zephyr Teachout

Mom and pop shops paying taxes while Amazon got billions just to come to town didn't seem right, and, post-FoxxConn, people are less likely to fall for the promised jobs numbers.

Zephyr Teachout

Amazon's outsized power is looking less and less like smart business and more and more like oppressive politics - one company bullying us all.

Zephyr Teachout

Amazon's capitulation to those opposed to their expansion in New York City is an epic moment for people power over an enormous corporate bully.

Zephyr Teachout

Google has established a pattern of lobbying and threatening to acquire power. It has reached a dangerous point common to many monarchs: The moment where it no longer wants to allow dissent.

Zephyr Teachout

It is time to call out Google for what it is: a monopolist in search, video, maps and browser, and a thin-skinned tyrant when it comes to ideas.

Zephyr Teachout

Normally, politicians lie because they want to persuade us of the truth of what they are saying. A candidate for Congress will claim that he earned a medal of honor when he did not, so that we will love and revere him.

Zephyr Teachout

We fought a revolution to free ourselves from arbitrary power and the whims of a monarch.

Zephyr Teachout

The Internet doesn't just enable cool avatars and the shorter form. It also allows the deeper form: cross-linked blog posts, extensive research, simultaneous screens and raw debate footage that anyone can scan online, at any time.

Zephyr Teachout

I propose a full day of live one-on-one debates on unannounced issues, with no aides to help or reply. Each candidate would be paired with another candidate for seven 60-minute sessions.

Zephyr Teachout

In the absence of relative equality - quid pro quo - a court might question whether there was an actual contract. If I give you a dollar, and you give me a mansion, our contract would lack quid pro quo.

Zephyr Teachout

An intuitive part of the American ethos is a kind of protectiveness of the public's fear. We have to remember how unique that is. As scandal-ridden as we may be, we start with a basic expectation that it's not your job in public service to use it to help your friend.

Zephyr Teachout

Quid pro quo has an interesting history. It's originally a contract law term, not a criminal bribery term.

Zephyr Teachout

It's said that history inevitably marches toward democracy, but it only leaves the possibility of democracy, and the constant threat that it would be eroded by big money.

Zephyr Teachout