Melvin Watt: “I have to say with respect to all my colleagues that I think we have lost sight of what this is all about. When we start…”

“I have to say with respect to all my colleagues that I think we have lost sight of what this is all about. When we start debating the merits or demerits of this bill, we miss the point. The point is that in North Carolina if I walk into a physician's office, all of that treatment takes place right there in North Carolina, and historically the tort law and medical negligence law has been determined State by State; and were I in the State legislature of North Carolina, all of this discussion that we are having would probably be a very appropriate debate. But for people who came to Congress saying that they believed in States' rights and the federalist form of government that we have, this debate is totally misplaced. It would be like us saying, well, we are very dissatisfied with schools all across the country; therefore, we are going to federalize the whole education system in America. That is what this debate reminds me of. My Republican colleagues, in 1995, told me that they believed in States' rights. And ever since then, they have been trying to federalize the standards on everything that has traditionally been done at the State level, and this is just another one of those examples. When I raise this point, nobody seems to care.”