Stephanie Herseth Sandlin: “Mr. Chairman, we have heard some very charming stories about this amendment, but how about a little truth in…”

“Mr. Chairman, we have heard some very charming stories about this amendment, but how about a little truth in advertising. The Sensenbrenner amendment that we are considering today is not Feinstein. While it is true that a rose by any other name is still a rose, calling a dandelion a rose do not make it so. Yet that is precisely the hoax that is being perpetrated by the Sensenbrenner amendment. In a desperate attempt to make H.R. 1115 appear moderate, trying to hide that it is really a radical expansion of Federal authority and away from the States, the proponents of the Sensenbrenner amendment want the House to believe that adopting this amendment makes H.R. 1115 the same proposal advanced by Senator Feinstein last month in the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Chairman, that is just not so. The Feinstein amendment was only about class actions, period. That is it. It was not meant to apply, nor does it apply, to mass tort cases, consolidated cases, joinder cases or State Attorney General actions; and as my friends on the other side of the aisle are so prone to say, why do they not read their own darn amendment. Let us get real on this.”