Political Quotes

“I listened to the logic of arguments against the referral to the Judiciary Committee. It has long been a practice in the Senate when there are overlapping jurisdictions that you have sequential referrals to another committee. For some reason or another that tradition, that custom, that part of the Senate procedure just does not appeal to some of the proponents of this legislation. But it has been done historically. It is done because of the fact that a committee that has jurisdiction may not have all of the staff expertise to look into certain specialized areas. And the Commerce Committee, while it may have some lawyers, it is not like the Judiciary that looks into the legal aspects, the legal ramifications in regard to it. This is a completely new bill. There never has been a 15-year statute of limitation, statute of repose, that has been in a bill that has been before the Judiciary Committee. There have been statutes of repose but they have been different. This is much shorter. This would deprive a great number of people of the right to recover if they are injured negligently, or injured willfully or wantonly, or injured under any concept of recovery. It is entirely different and it is limited to that. Other times when you had referrals, you had referrals that were over the overall bill. Most of the time it was spent on other issues, like punitive damages, caps, joint and several, and other things other than just the statute of repose.”