Quotes by Zephyr Teachout - Page 3 | QuoteForever

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As attorney general, I would work with my colleagues in other states to launch a major antitrust investigation to look into the ways in which Facebook and Google are wielding and may be abusing their duopoly powers.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Abuse
Antitrust
Attorney
Colleagues
Google
Investigation
States
General
Attorney General
Facebook
Major
Launch
Powers
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The attorney general of New York state has a special authority and responsibility to preserve the integrity of businesses and nonprofits in New York under the state's own laws as well as under the U.S. Constitution.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Attorney
Authority
New York State
Attorney General
Preserve
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In Europe, populism is sort of a dirty word, but we have this wonderful history of populism in America, including the abolitionist populists and the white and black populists working together in the nineteenth century.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Dirty
Europe
White
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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 / Law Professor
Medal
Candidate
Earned
Normally
Persuade
Revere
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If the publicly passed campaign finance laws had not been struck down by the Supreme Court, Club for Growth Action would be illegal, and Heritage Action wouldn't have the SuperPAC threat to back up its small ad purchases.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Finance
Campaign Finance
Court
Growth
Heritage
Illegal
Supreme
Supreme Court
Ad
Back Up
Campaign
Club
Passed
Publicly
Purchases
Struck
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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 / Law Professor
Campaigns
Real Power
Tools
Enables
Overly
Translated
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So paid media is when you buy an ad - typically in a presidential campaign that will be in Iowa, New Hampshire, the early states. It costs some money to make the ad, but the greatest cost is in actually placing the ad on TV.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Cost
Hampshire
Iowa
New Hampshire
Paid
Presidential
Presidential Campaign
Ad
Buy
Campaign
Placing
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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 / Law Professor
Charter
Charter Schools
Debates
Police Forces
Responsive
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I'm an FDR Democrat, and I really believe that the most important thing is the institutions of political parties, and engaging in those institutions, and, where you disagree with them, speaking up and sharing your disagreement.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Democrat
Disagree
Engaging
Political Parties
Fdr
Sharing
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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 / Law Professor
Women
Abuse
Behavior
Careers
Discouraged
Harassment
Adult
Women Are
Life Politics Women
Adult Life
Much
Assaulted
Too
Dismissed
Ended
Rampant
Where
Worked
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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 / Law Professor
Debate
Deeper
Posts
Screens
Simultaneous
Blog
Enable
Extensive
Footage
Raw
Scan
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New York state's Donnelly Act gives power at least as great - many think greater - than that of the Sherman Act. We have strong consumer protection laws that can be used to protect against scams and frauds by corporate monopolists.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Corporate
Protection
Scams
Power Great New
Consumer
Frauds
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At their best, new media are chaotic. The new technologies disrupt political pomp and glamour and engage people in an unpolished and unpredictable give-and-take. They also give citizens access to a surprising depth of raw information.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Access
Chaotic
Citizens
Depth
Glamour
Information
New Media
Surprising
Unpredictable
Best Political People
Disrupt
Engage
Raw
Technologies
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Integrity is hard work. I do think the internet makes it harder because of the temptations of performance. You can perform and have integrity, but it's easier just to perform. So the temptations of social media lead to some dissonance.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Hard Work
Integrity
Thinking
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At a policy level, we can support protecting and serving as opposed to militarization or disproportionate response. Step one is making sure we don't militarize and actually call for a review of military equipment in New York police forces.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Equipment
Response
Serving
Disproportionate
Police Forces
Protecting
Review
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Every politician should go and spend time and visit prisons and jails. Because if you are choosing to exercise this kind of power over another person's life, there's a role for that, but you have to know the kind of power you are exercising.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Life Time Power
Choosing
Exercising
Jails
Prisons
Visit
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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 / Law Professor
Finance
Campaign Finance
Cases
Citizens
Influence
Wealthy
Wisconsin
Life Politics Always
Blatant
Campaign
Course
Individuals
Large
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A lot of organizations have pointed out that under public financing systems, you see a lot more candidates of color and a lot more women. But you also see the power base behind these candidates is more representative and far less exclusively wealthy.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Candidates
Financing
Far Less
Pointed
Representative
Systems
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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 / Law Professor
Discussion
Founders
Human Nature
Thousands Of Years
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Things poll well, but people don't believe that politicians are telling the truth. Politicians might mention renewable energy, and the public will think, "That sounds good, but I don't believe they're going to do everything they can to build those towers."
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Believe
People
Thinking
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Talking to Republicans who aren't leaders - that's not very difficult both on anti-trust and on campaign finance reform. I think it's a lot more complicated when you talk to highly funded leaders - that's the innate, deeply problematic part of our politics.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Finance
Campaign Finance
Campaign Finance Reform
Innate
Problematic
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I mean this is a revolution in how campaigns work - more money was spent by super PACs than by either myself or John Faso. So what that means is that if you're a voter in this district you are more likely to have heard from a super PAC than from me or my opponent.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Campaigns
Work Money Myself
District
Opponent
Voter
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One of the more important things the Bernie Sanders campaign did is reach people who are political but not electorally political. They're political in either non-profits or community groups, but didn't see how important it was to get involved in electoral politics.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Important Things
Bernie Sanders
Electoral
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When I was in college in the late 80s-early 90s, there was a sense that history was on a straight path toward democracy everywhere. Well, that's not true. It was also not true that there's a single era of oligarchy, because we showed we could do something about it.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Oligarchy
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The science doesn't prove Common Core's effective. So I guess what I mean is science is an essential part of any decision-making process, and so is public involvement. And in the long-term, you lose legitimacy and power if you don't directly engage with the public.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Common
Core
Decision Making
Decision Making Process
Involvement
Legitimacy
Long Term
Prove
Directly
Effective
Engage
Essential
Guess
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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 / Law Professor
Ethos
Intuitive
Public Service
Expectation
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There are some libertarians who are really anarchists, but others are more concerned about the distant relationship between themselves and power. They mistakenly think they want to get rid of government when instead they might just want to have greater access to power.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Government
Thinking
Want
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You build massive databases, you learn everything you can about the people in those databases, you figure out exactly how they can be useful to your campaign, and you ask them to donate money, door-knock, the virtual equivalent of being a sort of army of stamp lickers.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Army
Databases
Donate
Money Your People
Equivalent
Money People Your
Stamp
Virtual
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Facebook is a known behemoth corporate monopoly. It has exposed at least 87 million people's data, enabled foreign propaganda and perpetuated discrimination. We shouldn't be begging for Facebook's endorsement of laws, or for Mark Zuckerberg's promises of self-regulation.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Begging
Corporate
Discrimination
Exposed
Monopoly
Endorsement
Promises
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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 / Law Professor
New York
Attorney
Conscience
Legislature
New York State
Obligation
Position
Rule Of Law
Appointed
Law People New
General
Attorney General
Elected
Governor
Independently
Rule
York
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Every district is going to be different, but if you wanted me to give advice to those candidates: Run your own campaign, the DCCC does not run your campaign. Figure out ways to raise money from small-dollar donors, and put some real energy into that because that will give you freedom to say no to big donors.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Candidates
Donors
Freedom Money Your
Be Different
District
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Until the 1980s, candidates spent a fraction of their time talking to donors; just a few weeks a year, a little more right before an election. True, they'd fund raise from the wealthy interests, as they do now, but it was a minuscule part of their job: policy and constituent services were the heart of the work.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Candidates
Donors
Election
Fund
Time Work Heart
Constituent
Work Time Heart
Fraction
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A lot of politics plays at the level of myth, and if you understand that, then you feel like you have access to the secret language of politics. People respond to political characters in archetypal ways. A fun game is to think of a politician and ask, "Which god is that? Are they like Aries? Are they like Athena?".
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Character
Fun
Thinking
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I think part of the reason the Tea Party has resonated is that people feel disempowered. The Tea Party says, "You are out of power because of big government." Then some Democrats tend to respond by saying, "No, you're wrong, you're not out of power." It's a sense that doesn't resonate with people's lived experience.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Government
Party
Thinking
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I think a lot of the reason people are attracted to the Keystone pipeline is because at least we're doing something. There's a fear that society will collapse if it's not acting. To contrast those actions with other actions is important in making it feel plausible. Maybe we must have the size of the dream meet the size of the threat.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Dream
People
Thinking
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You can have very big local government. By big, I mean very engaged government. Do you measure it in terms of the number of laws? Number of employees? You could make arguments for either one. I tend to think the axis of the size of government is the wrong concern. But I do think that situating power more locally is a legitimate approach.
Zephyr Teachout / Law Professor
Government
Mean
Thinking
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