Political Quotes

“I have taken the floor on several previous occasions to discuss the problem of abusive prison litigation and this Congress' efforts to attack that problem. The last time I did so was April 19, 1996. At that time, I expressed my disappointment that President Clinton had just vetoed the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. Contained in that bill was the Prison Litigation Reform Act, a carefully crafted set of provisions designed to stem the tide of prison litigation. In my view, this was a very important piece of legislation. Lawsuits by prisoners and lawsuits over prison conditions were completely out of hand. One figure captures the situation very well. In fiscal year 1995, prisoners--inmates in prison--filed 63,550 civil lawsuits in our Federal court system. That is a little over one-quarter of all the civil lawsuits filed in Federal courts that year. It's also far more than the 45,788 Federal criminal prosecutions initiated that fiscal year. In short, Mr. President, we saw, in fiscal year 1995, prison lawsuits outnumber prosecutions under our Federal system and account for one-quarter of all the lawsuits brought in this country in the Federal system. One prisoner sued because he had been served melted ice cream. For this he claimed $1 million in damages.”