Jon S. Corzine: “Lastly, Mr. President, I want to say something about the bill that we are going to be debating in the next hour or so…”

“Lastly, Mr. President, I want to say something about the bill that we are going to be debating in the next hour or so, class action fairness. I am not a lawyer, so I am not as sharp on all of the terminology and all the other issues, but it is very clear to me that we are taking the small ``d'' democratic processes out of access to our courts with the legislation that is underlying the motion to proceed. I think it is absolutely essential that we maintain the checks and balances in our present Federal constitutional system. That does not mean there are not abuses, and it does not mean we should not move to correct some of the things with regard to venue shopping, with regard to coupon procedures, which, by the way, are not even dealt with in this bill. I think this is a radical move. I am very much in favor of Senator Breaux's proposal, a modified approach, that will deal with some of the flaws. His bill would preserve state class actions while sending truly national class actions to Federal court. At the same time, it addresses the problem of abusive coupon settlements, which is something that the bill before us does not touch. But instead, at a time when we are fighting a war in Iraq, when we are fighting a war on terrorism worldwide, and we are facing historic budget deficits and job losses, we are debating a radical bill that would legislate away the legal rights of American families.”