Melvin Watt: “It is clear that this is not about what the appropriate standard should be for burden of proof for punitive damages. The…”

“It is clear that this is not about what the appropriate standard should be for burden of proof for punitive damages. The issue is not what that appropriate standard should be. The issue is, who ought to be setting that standard? If Members believe that the States have a place in our federation, which is what I have heard over and over and over again, I submit to my colleagues that the States ought to be determining for themselves what their own burdens of proof are and that we ought not at this level, at the Federal level, to be telling them that. Regardless of whether we think it ought to be one thing or the other, higher or lower, the States have the right to make this decision, not my colleagues here in this body.”