Political Quotes

“I express my thanks to the Senator from Alabama for his kind words. I appreciate the opportunity to work with him on these and other issues. Tomorrow morning around 11 o'clock, an important vote will occur in the Senate. At the heart of this vote, for me, is to determine whether or not we go forward, Democrats and Republicans, to actually take up and debate the way we allow people who are harmed, hurt, or injured--in many cases, by business--to be compensated. Most would agree that if you or I, as individuals, are damaged by the actions of another or by the actions of a business, we should be made whole. I believe the same protection should inure to a group of people or a class of people who may be harmed or damaged in some way by the actions or products of some business. Over time we seem to have lost our sense of balance in the way we litigate class actions. When our Founding Fathers came up with our Federal courts, we did not have class actions. We did not have mass actions. We did not have private attorneys general actions. We did not have any of that. We had a concern on the part of our Founding Fathers that if a group of people in one State were harmed by a business or person in another State, maybe we ought to have a Federal court system, to ensure that the case is not heard by the potentially biased judges in the injured party's home state. The trial bar gets a bad rap in a lot of quarters, but I believe they play a very helpful and constructive role in this country.”