Bruce F. Vento: “I, without equivocation, rise in strong opposition to this legislation. I obviously understand the problem that the…”

“I, without equivocation, rise in strong opposition to this legislation. I obviously understand the problem that the committee was trying to solve and the necessity to deal with electronic or e-commerce, and to try to provide the legal framework which would be workable for such transactions to go forward. The fact of the matter is, though, that this bill, while being dealt with in the Committee on Commerce in the House and the Committee on the Judiciary, there was a reluctance to in fact provide the Committee on Banking and Financial Services with an opportunity to look at the legislation. This is not a jurisdictional fight on my part. My impression was that it was a very narrow bill that dealt with some transactions and tried to, in fact, provide legal sanctity to an electronic signature, which, as I said, makes some sense. But in the process of going forward and reviewing the bill more closely, my recognition and understanding of this bill grew that it encompasses much more than simply an electronic signature.”