John Cornyn

“I think that what people want is for government to function... not through temper tantrums and saying we are not going to participate, we are not going to play ball.”

“Justices are not politicians. They don't run on a political platform, and senators should not ask them to do so.”

“I just think the mood of the country is now that people don't necessarily want an elected official to tell them how they ought to cast their vote. Matter of fact, it's the opposite, and they want to express themselves, and they have a right to, and I'll respect their choice.”

“Nobody else in the world can do what we can do. And nobody else is willing to do it for altruistic reasons. I mean, we don't go into places like Iraq to grab their oil or colonize their country. We go there to deliver, as George W. Bush said, the blessings of liberty.”

“People are tired of just yelling at the TV set. They actually are going to turn out and vote.”

“The Supreme Court has never ruled that Congress can use the Commerce Clause to require individuals to engage in an activity they have chosen to avoid. Yet that is precisely what Obamacare does: It forces Americans without health insurance to purchase coverage. Such a requirement is unprecedented and unconstitutional.”

“Think for a moment about what Obamacare has done: The federal government has come up with its own (ever-evolving) definition of 'health insurance,' which now includes free access to sterilization, contraception, and certain abortifacients such as the morning-after pill.”

“The enemy is not Islam, the great world faith, but a perversion of Islam.”

“By the Obama administration's reasoning, it would be constitutionally permissible to make Americans purchase nearly any product (broccoli, gym membership) that improved their health and thereby contributed to lower health-care costs.”

“I can't imagine the American people voting for Hillary Clinton to serve basically the third term of Barack Obama. And I think whoever the Republican primary voters and the delegates nominate, I will support that nominee wholeheartedly against a Hillary Clinton candidacy.”

“But last year there were 540,000 people, roughly, detained coming across the border illegally. Forty-five thousand of them came from countries other than Mexico, demonstrating the fact that Mexico itself now is a pathway into the United States for people all around the world, and we don't know what their intentions are.”

“Senators will do what they think they need to do to represent their constituents.”

“I think we ought to talk about what the American people want, and that is jobs and get the economy on track.”

“Why is it that half of the households in America pay zero income tax? We need some real tax reform.”

“When it rains, it pours - figuratively and literally.”

“I don't really think it's appropriate for me to be picking and choosing in the primaries. It's pretty dumb politics for a Republican to choose between Republicans in a contested primary because obviously you're going to be offending some people.”

“If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees.”

“We need a straitjacket around Congress when it comes to spending so that they are forced to do what 49 states are required to do and what every family business and every family is required to do, and that's live within their means.”

“A vast majority of Republicans are on the record saying that they believe the Violence Against Women Act should be reauthorized. Let me be clear: I believe that Violence Against Women Act must be reauthorized.”