Bob Dole: “I wanted to remind people before the next cloture vote that 83 percent of the American people want to reform our legal…”

“I wanted to remind people before the next cloture vote that 83 percent of the American people want to reform our legal system. They want to eliminate abusive, large damage awards that benefit only lawyers and not the public, and they want commonsense, not dollars and cents, legal reform. Who would have thought that 2 weeks ago a majority of the Senate would vote to extend punitive damages to all civil cases? It would have been hard to believe 2 weeks ago that a majority of the Senate would vote to add medical malpractice to the bill. It would have been hard to believe 2 weeks ago when we started on this bill that a majority in the Senate had proved by its vote that it wants to improve the legal system so that it benefits a majority of the Americans and not a majority of the trial lawyers. Do not forget, with the votes we have been able to pretty much meet what the House did in a bipartisan way in the Contract With America. The vote in the House was 265 to 161. We had a lot of Democrats and a lot of Republicans come together and respond to the voices of the American people. For the first time in 10 years, we have broken the stranglehold of the tort lawyers. We have heard the voices of the American people and passed amendments that protect entities as varied as small businesses, Girl Scouts, churches, Little Leagues, firefighters, and policemen. For all this endorsement of change, the forces of status quo remain as strong as ever.”