Sam Brownback: “I want to stand up and speak on behalf of Grandma Gramm, that her money not go to lawyers as well. Mr. President, I have…”

“I want to stand up and speak on behalf of Grandma Gramm, that her money not go to lawyers as well. Mr. President, I have been following this debate back in the office. I followed it for some period of time. I serve on the Commerce Committee. I initiated this debate in the Commerce Committee and discussed it there. It seems as if the points have been pretty well made, pretty significantly made and repeated in the true tradition of the Senate about five times, so we all get it pretty clearly. One thing that I want to point out, though, at this juncture, because the debate has been engaging, is whether or not the Senate should set legal fees, whether we should get involved in this. And I generally, as a principle, would say no, we should not, but the fact is, in this bill we already are setting legal fees. We are setting them in this bill. And so to the extent that we are going to set them, I think the only question for us to ask ourselves is how much. Should it be nearly $100,000 an hour or should it be $250 an hour? As to the question of whether or not we are setting legal fees, they are being set in this bill. In this bill, we are providing the money. We are setting in place the mechanism to give this money to the trial lawyers. That is happening. I don't care how you cut it. That is what happens if this bill passes. If this bill doesn't pass, that doesn't happen.”