Political Quotes

“I am very concerned that H.R. 720 may have a serious, deleterious impact on the ability of individuals to protect their civil and constitutional rights in Federal court. This is a point that has been emphasized on this side ever since we have started examining, more carefully, H.R. 720. Accordingly, my amendment would simply exempt these types of cases from the bill. Based on a decade of experience with the 1983 version of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, we know that the civil rights cases were, in fact, disproportionately impacted because they often raised novel arguments. For example, a 1991 Federal Judicial Center study found that the incidence of rule 11 motions was ``higher in civil rights cases than in some other types of cases.'' Another study shows that, while civil rights cases comprised only 11 percent of the Federal cases filed, more than 22 percent of the cases in which sanctions had been imposed were, in fact, civil rights cases. The bill contains a rule of construction intended to clarify that ``it not be construed to bar the assertion of new claims or defenses or remedies, including those arising under civil rights laws or the Constitution.'' The inclusion of this language is an acknowledgment of the disproportionate impact that the 1983 rule had on civil rights cases, and we should applaud--and I am sure we do--its intent.…”