Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I am happy to accept the time from the gentleman from Tennessee and make the point that hasn't been made very well here today that--apparently, not well enough or the gentleman wouldn't have yielded the time to me, I don't believe--where there are Federal dollars involved, there have been Federal regulations that have matched along with that. We have written all kinds of legislation in this Congress, a lot of which I disagreed with. But there was a Federal nexus, and it hasn't been litigated successfully time after time after time. We saw ObamaCare itself was litigated over and over again and the Supreme Court came down with rulings that let that legislation stand. That is one of the reasons why we have the angst that we have today. But the case that this usurps States' rights is thin. It is not without some consequence, but it is very thin. We have gone way over to the other side, and we have written everything that we can possibly write into this bill that respects the rights of States. There is always a Federal nexus--we can count on that--and it is so small in comparison to so many other Federal things. Some of the things in our Federal Government are overreach. This is not. This is a minimal, de minimis reach in order to regulate over-the-top trial lawyers, who are the ones who are the only losers today, Mr. Chairman.”