Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman from Michigan. Madam Speaker, I come here as a freshman in this Congress. I come from northeastern Pennsylvania, my first time involved in the political theater. And I tell you, Madam Speaker, that I have plied my entire adult life in the civil courts. I have handled all manner of civil cases on behalf of defendants, on behalf of plaintiffs, on behalf of people, on behalf of companies. I have seen the whole spectrum of civil litigation; and I have been doing that, both before and after the repeal of the mandatory LARA provision in 1993, so I am as qualified as anybody in this Chamber to speak to the merits of this so-called lawsuit abuse reduction bill. It is a bill that should fail; and I say this, not just because it tends to shut the door further on consumers seeking justice in the court system of the United States, but because it also reinstates a rule that has already been seen to be misapplied, to be misplaced, to be a bad rule. In 1993, we abandoned this rule for a reason. It wasn't because we pulled it out of thin air, the idea to abandon this mandatory sanctions under rule 11 rule. It is because of the experience. The gentlelady from Texas held up the chart. You saw the spiking in rule 11 filings. That wasn't because people were out diligently cleaning up the mess in civil courts. It is because they were encouraged to make those filings because of the mandatory nature of the rule.…”