• The fourth year of most people’s high school is a waste of time.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 9, 2012
• Ron Sims, a member of the Washington State University Board of Regents, who predicts that 25 years from now, K-12 education will become K-11 education. Read more public officials' predictions about what government will look like in 2037 below.

• The death penalty? Give me a break. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy.
• Source: AP/Politico   |   Nation   |   October 8, 2012
• Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who thinks both are constitutional, says his "textualist" approach to interpreting the Constitution makes even the most controversial issues easy to resolve.
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• mr. president, you needed a five hour energy drink before you started this debate. #Current2012
• BY: Caroline Cournoyer   |   Nation   |   October 5, 2012
• Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, via Twitter, in response to President Barack Obama's performance in the presidential debate this week.

• The economy is not doing poorly because of a lack of money. ... [It's] because we don’t have the creativity, education and investments in people that we had previously.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 4, 2012
• Fred Leeb, the former emergency financial manager for Pontiac, Mich., a financially distressed city that was essentially taken over by the state. Leeb proposes solving cities' economic problems by giving a few billion dollars to the country's top minds to collaborate on a monumental project -- if they agree to live and work in one of America's struggling cities.

• Leave the partying with Lindsay to the professionals. Do your day job.
• Source: Politico   |   Montana   |   October 3, 2012
• Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer's advice for the Congressional staffer who was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault after a fight about a cellphone with actress Lindsay Lohan.

• When people are using language like ‘death panels,’ there’s more emotion and fear than if you say you want to honor the wishes of this individual.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Nation   |   October 2, 2012
• Dr. Susan Tolle, director of the Center for Ethics in Health Care at the Oregon Health & Sciences University, on how word choice factors into the chance of success for a state-level movement focused on giving terminally ill patients more say in what medicine and medical procedures they want or don’t want.

• I always thought a cane was dapper. Maybe I'll order a three-piece suit from London.
• Source: Detroit News   |   Michigan   |   October 1, 2012
• Brooks Patterson, the Oakland County, Mich., executive, who's in a wheelchair after suffering several injuries from a car accident. He's seeking his fifth four-year term in November.

• We may lose some seats in the Legislature, but this is a Republican state and it isn’t going to change.
• Source: Stateline   |   Arizona   |   September 28, 2012
• Steve Pierce, president of the state Senate in Arizona, where newly redrawn legislative maps are expected to help Democrats pick up seats in November.

• Americans have the mistaken idea that more medicine is better medicine.
• Source: Stateline   |   Arkansas   |   September 27, 2012
• Andy Allison, the director of Arkansas' Medicaid program, which is launching an initiative aimed at taming runaway costs by offering doctors financial incentives to provide more efficient care.

• For them to say there is a war on women. I am still looking for it.
• Source: Raleigh News & Observer   |   South Carolina   |   September 26, 2012
• Gov. Nikki Haley, campaigning for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in South Carolina where suburban women disproportionately make up the sliver of undecided voters.

• I was invited to the picnic, and I was the main course.
• Source: New York Times   |   Mississippi   |   September 25, 2012
• Mike Chaney -- the insurance commissioner for Republican-led Mississippi, where he's having difficulty setting up a state-based health insurance exchange -- referring to a confrontation with an opponent of the federal health-care law at a luncheon.

• This feels like Groundhog Day. Every month we hear the same bad news, followed by the same inevitable spin.
• Source: Newark Star-Ledger   |   New Jersey   |   September 24, 2012
• New Jersey state Senate President Stephen Sweeney, upon hearing the news that the state's unemployment rate rose to its highest in three decades in August (9.9 percent). The jobless rate has been climbing since January, when Gov. Chris Christie began boasting of a "Jersey Comeback."

• We have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up ... and get the ID they need. ... The state can’t fix that.
• Source: Stateline   |   Pennsylvania   |   September 21, 2012
• Pennsylvania state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, who sponsored the state's voter ID law. Critics argue the law would suppress turnout among poor, elderly and minority voters who are less likely to own a photo ID.
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• Whenever I was called a dictator, I always made sure they added the word benevolent in front of it.
• Source: GOVERNING   |   Washington, D.C.   |   September 20, 2012
• Robert G. Flanders, Jr., the state receiver for Central Falls, R.I., which declared bankruptcy last year, speaking at Governing's Cost of Government summit. Flanders cut pension benefits for some retirees by more than 50 percent.

• I promise you, there will be lawsuits.
• Source: Politico   |   New York   |   September 19, 2012
• New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on his eventual decision to allow the controversial drilling practice of hydraulic fracturing in the state. New York has been operating under a temporary moratorium on fracking until the state Department of Environmental Conservation completes its review of the issue.