Matt Gaetz: “I thank my gracious colleague for yielding, though we do not hold the same position on this piece of legislation. Madam…”

“I thank my gracious colleague for yielding, though we do not hold the same position on this piece of legislation. Madam Speaker, when our fellow Americans get a cell phone contract, when they get cable, when they get internet, they are subject to forced arbitration. Virtually every single American lives under a forced arbitration provision today, and most do not know it. Do we really think that people have the ability to go negotiate against AT&T or Comcast or in many cases big businesses that employ a great deal of Americans? Of course, they don't. And so what that means is that we have a two-tier system of dispute resolution. Regular folks get to show up at Article III courts the taxpayers fund to resolve their disputes, and meanwhile oftentimes big business gets a concierge lane to be able to resolve matters in their favor and oftentimes to preclude the resolution of a matter at all. Think about instances of wage theft where big businesses can take just a little bit of money and not pay their employees. Well, an individual employee would have a very hard time getting a lawyer and making a case on that, and so they need the class action tool to be able to get redress for their grievances. The forced arbitration provisions that impair so many of our fellow Americans limit that class action tool, and then people end up getting really screwed in the process. I support the legislation.…”