I supported the proposal last week of Senator Rockefeller and felt as though that was a strong message that we needed to be sending. We didn't prevail in that particular issue. It is an important issue for the Senator from Pennsylvania…

As someone who has been there and spent the time and wandered without restraint and had conversations with people--I had a long conversation, as someone who speaks the language, speaks Spanish; I was able to have lengthy conversations with…

I spent a week in Cuba in December, in fact, all over the area, all over Havana, and Varadero as well for a day. I point out to my colleague that I saw Americans all over the streets of Havana. The idea you are confined to Varadero Beach…

I like the idea that an average citizen in my State, in Massachusetts, in Florida, can go into Cuba and walk those streets, talk to people in the marketplaces, and share with them what we stand for as a nation. Every time we have allowed…

Let me say to my friend and colleague from New Jersey, I admire his rhetorical skills immensely. He made a valiant effort to shift the argument and debate implying we are doing a favor, this is somehow a great act of generosity and…

We have proposed the pending amendments because we believe the time has come to lift the very archaic, counterproductive, and ill-conceived ban on Americans traveling to Cuba. Not only does this ban hinder rather than help our effort to…

I think there has been more heat than light evidenced by those who have attempted to characterize what the amendment offered by Senator Brownback seeks to achieve with the proposed amendment or with legislation that he introduced earlier…

So in a sense we are promoting, by this particular provision in our existing law, illegal travel.

To Cuban Americans who want to travel to Cuba--many do-- this is, in a sense, saying you can only go back to the country of your birth once during a year, unless you have a sick relative, and then you have to apply to some bureaucrat in…

This is a 36-month bill to deal with a very specific, real problem. I just left a hearing this morning on the medical industry. We are not talking about personal injuries here, but to give you some idea, there are some serious problems in…

I wish to again turn to the Y2K liability bill and the very real importance of this issue. As you know, I have served for the past year with Senator Bennett on the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem. For over a…

we are getting arcane. If a contract is illegal, it is not a contract. Just to say we have a contract, if there is no consent, if all the principles necessary for it to be a valid contract are missing, if a contract is inherently illegal…

Let me give a factual example to make the case. Assume you have two identical computer systems, system A and system B, sold by the same manufacturer. They prove to be defective and cause economic damages of $100 million and lost profits to…

Again, I listened to the debate on the Kerry amendment. Again, as I stated earlier, I went down the various points of the proposal. The amendment basically is designed to open up the McCain legislation to the kinds of unbridled litigation…

I say to my colleague, we had a very delightful meeting for an hour and a half with Andy Grove. Those were, as I recall them, his sentiments expressed to us. He is someone who has been quoted over and over in the last number of weeks, and…

I thought our colleagues might find it worthwhile to know that there are literally dozens of organizations, representing a significant percentage of the gross domestic product of this country, that endorse the McCain-Wyden-Dodd…

We do not protect illegal contracts in this legislation. If there is any question, let the legislative history confirm that. I do not think we need confirmation. Upholding an illegal contract by legislation would require herculean efforts…

I enjoy the Senator's collegiality and leadership. It is nice to have the distinguished Senator from Idaho as a new Member of the Senate. Let me begin these brief remarks by commending the distinguished chairman of the committee, Senator…

In response to my colleague--and I thank him for raising the issue--I do not claim great expertise in the product liability area. We have done some work, and I appreciate his comments, on the securities bill, the standards reform bill, and…

I take a moment on the pending issue before the Senate. The year 2000 litigation reform proposal has certainly been the subject of a lot of discussion over the last couple of days. As the ranking Democrat on the committee chaired by the…

I think there is a need to try to come up with some legislation to minimize what could be runaway litigation in this Nation. There have already been some 80 lawsuits, many of them class action lawsuits, filed on the Y2K issue. We have been…

It is somewhat appropriate, I say to my friend and colleague from Connecticut, that the Presiding Officer is from Ohio. But for Ohio, we would not have made it to the Final Four, the final game. This is a moment of great joy for my…

If the leader would yield further, I appreciate him showing some patience here. This is, I think, a very good idea. By the way, I am a cosponsor of the proposal here to do this for our service men and women. I had the pleasure of being…

I believe he expresses the feelings of all of us here. Whatever other differences there may be, I think there is a deep sense of appreciation first and foremost for our own men and women in uniform; secondly, for the organizations that are…

I commend him for his statement recognizing the contributions of Eudora Welty. This Connecticut Yankee loves her writing. And for my birthday present this year I received a first edition copy of one of Eudora Welty's novels. I prize and…