Senator John Wright Hickenlooper Jr is an American geologist, politician, and businessman. He is serving as a junior Democratic member of the U.S. Senate since 2021. He served as the Mayor of Denver from 2003 to 2011. He was also the former Governor of Colorado, United States from 2011 to 2019.
Hickenlooper was born in Pennsylvania, on February 7, 1952. He graduated from the Haverford School in 1970 and got his B.A. in English at Wesleyan University in 1974. He furthered and earned his master’s degree in Geology at the same University in 1980.
Sen. Hickenlooper worked as the chairman of the National Governors Association from 2014-2015. He also serves as a member of the Western Governors Association.
Senator John Hickenlooper worked as a Geologist for Buckhorn Petroleum in Colorado. But when Buckhorn closed down during the Great Recession, Hickenlooper lost his job.
After raising funds from family and friends, he opened a brewing company in Denver in 1986. His company saw to the renovation of several old buildings in cities across the Midwest.
At the age of 68, Hickenlooper is the oldest Senator in the United States from Colorado. He became Senator Secretary of the Interior in the Obama administration. He was succeeded by Jared Polis, the current governor of Colorado in 2019.
You can find out more about the senator here.
Here’s our collection of the best John Hickenlooper quotes:
Table of Contents
John Hickenlooper Quotes on Politics/Power/Government/Trump
The issue that a political campaign would make a human life into – you know – a political football, is unsettling.
John Hickenlooper
I would argue that one of the issues which the public should be much more emphatic about with all politicians… is patronage, appointing people to high positions because they supported your campaign or helped you raise money.
John Hickenlooper
Some day, someone will do something wrong and there will be a scandal to report in the paper. When that happens, we will address it honestly and openly and try to deal with it as quickly and as fairly as we can, and keep moving the city forward.
John Hickenlooper
I think decriminalization would’ve been a wiser first step.
John Hickenlooper
A mayor is a symbol and a public face of what a city bureaucracy provides its citizens.
John Hickenlooper
The vice president can play a real role in that, in helping solve some of the biggest problems in the country.
John Hickenlooper
Democracy is based upon empathy and the recognition that some decisions are solely for the community’s benefit without regard to one’s own narrow self-interest.
John Hickenlooper
People turn off the news, stop reading in-depth magazine articles – especially young people. Look at the increasing reluctance of young people to vote. I think a lot of that is directly – you can lay it at the feet of these negative campaigns and relentless attack ads.
John Hickenlooper
Last, in restaurants you spend a lot of time dealing with people who are very unhappy. Soup has been spilled on their laps, they’ve waited 10 minutes to get their check so they can leave, and you learn how to listen, I think, in a much more proactive way than the government does.
John Hickenlooper
The one thing that I don’t think the Obama administration gets anywhere near enough credit for is the high level of administrators. They meet all the time so they can synergize the federal investments. That’s the way any corporation would do it.
John Hickenlooper
Government doesn’t have a high tolerance for failure.
John Hickenlooper
Of everyone else who was running, and there were some very talented people, none of them had anywhere near the experience I had in hiring people, holding them accountable, creating systems for accountability.
John Hickenlooper
That is a disaster, you might as well FedEx the election to Donald Trump.
John Hickenlooper
If Democratic Colorado Senate is so good, how come all of those senators are trying to get out ? democratic Colorado Senate doesn’t attract me.
John Hickenlooper
We have to focus on where Donald Trump is failing, Donald Trump is malpractice personified. We’ve got to point that out. … Why are we lurching from one international crisis to another ? All things he promised American voters. We have to focus on that and the economy and jobs and training, so that we can promise a future for America that everybody wants to invest in.
John Hickenlooper
I fundamentally disagree that we should do away with the democratic, regulated capitalism that has guided this country for over 200 years.
John Hickenlooper
If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer.
John Hickenlooper
John Hickenlooper Quotes on Republicans/Democrats
I think that the bottom line is, if we don’t clearly define that we are not socialists, the Republicans are going to come at us every way they can and call us socialists.
John Hickenlooper
Democrats must say loudly and clearly that we are not socialists. If we do not, we will end up helping to reelect the worst President in our country’s history. Socialism is the most effective attack line Republicans can use against Democrats as long as President Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket.
John Hickenlooper
This is all through collaboration, business and nonprofits. It’s Republicans and Democrats. Getting everybody to work. And I think that message that we can achieve progressive goals without this very ideological purity, I think that’s a message that people have to hear.
John Hickenlooper
John Hickenlooper Quotes on Health/Drugs
One of the best things about ***** legalization: “I think the black market has been damaged. I think people are willing to pay taxes and to go through pretty rigorous regulation.
John Hickenlooper
Some of the anxiety has been laid to rest. We don’t see a spike in adult use. We don’t think we see a spike in youth consumption although there are some things that are disconcerting.
John Hickenlooper
On unanticipated problems: There’s been “a dramatic increase in edibles.” And “no one had ever worried about dosage sizes. The original edibles that came out, once you took the packaging off there was nothing to show it was any different than candy.
John Hickenlooper
On what motivated Colorado voters: “Let’s face it, the War on Drugs was a disaster. It may be well intentioned … but it sent millions of kids to prison, gave them felonies often when they had no violent crimes … I was against this, but I can see why so many people supported it.
John Hickenlooper
As Colorado attempts to build its brand as a healthy state, ***** “dilutes what you’re trying to do.
John Hickenlooper
Let’s face it: the War on Drugs was a disaster. It may be well intentioned… but it sent millions of kids to prison, gave them felonies oftentimes when they had no violent crimes.
John Hickenlooper
For me, the risks in terms of opening that brewpub were fairly high. I put my house up as collateral, I invested the liquid money I had and two years of my time to get it over, but that’s really not much of a risk for what the potential reward was if it worked.
John Hickenlooper
The old system, the War on Drugs, was a train wreck.
John Hickenlooper
One of the governor’s concerns: “This high-THC marijuana, what can it do to a brain that is still developing?
John Hickenlooper
One of the governor’s complaints: federal rules that prohibit dispensary owners from putting their money in banks. “If you really want to introduce corruption into legal marijuana,” he said, make it an all cash business.
John Hickenlooper
We have tax revenue that’s going to allow us to look in a much more comprehensive way at intervening in addiction.
John Hickenlooper
John Hickenlooper Quotes on Equality/Economy/Business
Tough times call for tough choices and pinching every penny.
John Hickenlooper
Any businessman will tell you that transportation is fundamental to success.
John Hickenlooper
The Democratic Party is always going to be the party of civil rights and fairness – everybody gets an equal, fair shot at the American dream. And we’re going to be the party that really fights to protect planet Earth – enjoy whatever time we’re going to get!
John Hickenlooper
Today we’re dealing with metropolitan Shanghai, metropolitan New Delhi or Paris. If we’re competing at that level, our diversity, that richness of people coming from so many different backgrounds, is one of our greatest advantages.
John Hickenlooper
I would argue that’s because we had a bunch of smart people running around here. They were coming in and working very hard and many of them had left jobs in which they made significantly more money.
John Hickenlooper
We are, by many measures, one of the more diverse cities in the country, growing more diverse all the time, and one of the more harmonious in terms of how we live together.
John Hickenlooper
We will see the increasingly rapid rate of growth we’ve already been seeing in Colorado continue.
Secure the border; have an ID system that works. Have a guest worker system. And then, finally, hold businesses accountable. Once you do that, most of the chambers of commerce and those who are clamoring around immigration will take a deep breath and relax.
John Hickenlooper
In the restaurant business, you never want to have enemies, whereas it seems that many politicians judge their success by how high their enemies are and whether they can show that they can hold their ground and give a punch for every punch they take.
John Hickenlooper
Money isn’t everything, but the gaps between rich districts and poor districts ultimately mean a workforce that won’t be as competitive as it could be, and individual Coloradans won’t be as successful as they could be.
John Hickenlooper
In the restaurant business, you learn quickly there’s no margin in having enemies.
John Hickenlooper
You looked at Stanford or Harvard, or the University of Colorado, these were powerful engines just turning out people ready to create and grow businesses.
John Hickenlooper
Trade wars are for losers, let’s negotiate (a) better trade deal, but you are not going to win against China in a trade war when they’ve got 25% of our total debt.
John Hickenlooper
John Hickenlooper Quotes on Environment/Infrastructure
Infrastructure is more than laying new roads and expanding transit: it’s running the fiber and deploying new technologies for reliable, affordable Internet in every part of the state.
John Hickenlooper
I assume we will have figured out a way to efficiently utilize solar energy and tied that to an efficient way to use nuclear energy in such a way that it doesn’t pose a serious environmental issue.
John Hickenlooper
Summary
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