Political Quotes

“I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to H.R. 985, the so-called Fairness in Class Action Litigation and Furthering Asbestos Claims Transparency Act of 2017. I want to thank my distinguished colleague from Texas for his presentation and for also making clear that the overriding purpose here is really to give the class action mechanism the guillotine. Now, this doesn't formally abolish the class action mechanism. It is not the guillotine, but it is a straitjacket. Let's be very clear, the whole purpose of this legislation is to make it virtually impossible for class action lawsuits to be brought by groups of citizens who share a common injury from things such as consumer rip-offs, pharmaceutical drug mistakes, faulty product design, sex discrimination, sexual harassment, poisonous breast implants, asbestos poisoning, lead poisoning, and so on--all of the billions of dollars worth of tort actions, nothing fraudulent about them, all of them already determined by courts and by juries to have taken place against our citizens, and they want to make it virtually impossible for people to proceed in court under the class action mechanism. I began with a very important process observation which I noted before, Mr. Chairman. There has been no hearing on this legislation. There have been no calls for this legislation from people allegedly suffering the horrors of the reviled class action lawyers.…”