Political Quotes

“I rise on this rule to point out with strong vehemence my opposition to this last minimum effort to completely undercut the jurisdiction of the Committee on the Judiciary and allow the majority to offer an amendment to H.R. 1058 that would end civil RICO lawsuits for securities fraud. The Racketeer Influence and Corrupt Organizations legislation would now be brought to an end with one sentence that has never been examined in either the former Committee on Commerce, the present Committee on the Judiciary, in any subcommittees or full committees. As a matter of fact, it was not even on this rule. It was through a remeeting that this rule even allowed it to be joined, and this is one of the great protections against fraud that exists in our law today. It is absolutely incredible that the RICO amendment that is included in here is broader than any RICO amendment that Congress has ever considered before. The previous attempts at this legislation have failed, and those attempts do not ever go as far as this sweeping amendment that we are considering with such a short amount of time. We need more time. We could use the whole time for this bill on RICO alone, and it is with great regret that I have to make these points about a very important part of this rule.”