Ed Markey: “this is a terrible bill. I mean really a bad one, a stinker. Write it down, top 10 this year, Bad Bills. When I was…”

“this is a terrible bill. I mean really a bad one, a stinker. Write it down, top 10 this year, Bad Bills. When I was reviewing the legislation, I was reminded of a poem that I once learned as a child: As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today; Oh, how I wish that he'd stay away. The proponents of this bill would have you believe that a man has appeared on the stair in the form of investors flocking from Federal to State courts pursuing frivolous class action suits against honest corporate chieftains. But the fact is that the number of class actions filed in the States is lower this year than it was last year. In fact, it is lower this year than it was in the year before this Congress passed their Federal Securities Litigation Reform Act in 1995. Fewer State class actions, this year. So there is no increase in State class action suits. People are not looking for that as a loophole around the Federal class action law. It is just not happening.”