Howard Berman: “Mr. Chairman, just on the good chairman's last point, he wants to give people a day in court. As the gentleman from…”

“Mr. Chairman, just on the good chairman's last point, he wants to give people a day in court. As the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the author of the amendment, just pointed out, without this amendment, there is no day in court. They file their class action in State court, the defendants remove it to Federal court, the Federal court refuses to certify it, remanding it back to the State court, they pursue it in State court, and they remove it again back to Federal court. They never get a chance to try it. If this bill is about trying to have cases, legitimate Federal class action cases, heard in Federal court and not in State courts, then the amendment does nothing to destroy the focus of this bill. If this bill is about removing the ability of local judges, rather than Federal judges, to give hometown kinds of decisions and rulings, there is nothing in this amendment that hurts this bill. It is only if one accepts, which I believe is true, that the only purpose of this bill is to eliminate any State or any of the 50 States' ability to decide there are certain kinds of class actions they want to hear that come outside the scope of rule 23, and that, in effect, this bill wipes out the right of all 50 States to make that decision, and defines rule 23 in the Federal courts as the only place to ever bring a class action, that is the only reason to oppose this amendment.”