Political Quotes

“this amendment gets to the heart of the question. What are these agreements? Are they generous? Are they reasonable? Each attorney general, under my agreement, will be forced to put it on the table in front of the people and say, ``Here is what I agreed to. If I agreed to pay 25 percent of the settlement then I have to explain to the taxpayers of the State why that was a sensible thing to do at the time.'' If it is a reasonable agreement, so be it. If not, the public official will be held accountable. And none of the money paid in attorney's fees will come out of the amount to be spent for public health purposes. I think this gets to the heart of it. The Senator from Alabama, in his amendment, says $5 million a State is more than enough to prosecute the tobacco companies; $5 million a State. It sounds like a princely sum until we hear the Senator from Minnesota stand up and tell us the tobacco companies spent $125 million in that State to defend themselves, 25 times as much. All of a sudden you step back and say maybe $5 million doesn't give you the resources for a fair fight. The Senator from Alabama has repeatedly said he doesn't know what these agreements consist of in other States. I think that is the reason why his amendment is flawed. Also, I think we should know in a State like Florida, which recently entered into an agreement, the question of attorney's fees was necessarily set aside. It is not part of the agreement that was announced.”