Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I am asking my colleagues to vote no on the Watt amendment dealing with the pending lawsuits. This amendment was raised at the Committee on the Judiciary. The gentleman made similar, consistent arguments, and it was shot down at the time. I would like to give three reasons why my colleagues should vote no. First of all, there is a good policy reason to vote no. Second, the Supreme Court will uphold this; and third, we have done similar language before in other bipartisan bills. First, with respect to the reason of policy, if such an amendment were passed, all that would happen is we would have hundreds if not more cases filed before the date of enactment, and we know that after this bill passes today, it has to pass the other body where we have Senator McConnell as the chief sponsor, so there would be a time frame where there would be an incentive to find the right jury and the right judge. We have an idea that is sort of their game plan because the one witness the Democrats called at the Committee on the Judiciary hearing was a man named John Banzhaf who said, ``Somewhere there is going to be a judge and a jury that will buy this, and once we get the first verdict, as we did with tobacco, it will open the floodgates.'' So it does away with that incentive that clearly they want.”