Angie Craig: “I certainly join my colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, in his expression of concern and hope for the outcome of…”

“I certainly join my colleague, the Senator from Pennsylvania, in his expression of concern and hope for the outcome of the volunteer summit that has just occurred in Philadelphia. I, too, hope that we can keep the dynamics of that going. There is no question, though, that one of the blights against voluntarism and giving freely of one's time to the benefit of human kind is what has transpired in this country over the last several decades when we have, in fact, denied the doctrine of charitable immunity; in other words, the ability to go out and give of your time and then by chance you make an accident--or by chance somewhere in the process someone might claim some question of injury--that, all of a sudden, you are liable, the courts take it up, the trial lawyers drag you through the courts, and they put a phenomenal blight on the giving concept that voluntarism is all about. That is what S. 543 is about--to clearly prescribe what the limits are so that we don't put a legal damper on the kind of energies that are spilling forth from Philadelphia that Colin Powell is trying to once again fire up in this country.”