Political Quotes

“the philosophy of this amendment is embodied in the first sentence, which is to empower individual consumers with the information to avoid defective products; court records in all product liability actions are presumed to be open. The thrust of this amendment is that if we empower people to be responsible, to have the information to avoid defective products, they avoid litigation, and trial lawyers and all the problems that the authors of this legislation say their legislation is designed to resolve. It is rather shocking to hear a series of contradictions from those who oppose the amendment. First they tell us that we should trust the judges. Mr. Chairman, if we trusted the judges of the 50 States, we would not be here this afternoon with this piece of legislation in the first place. The whole theory of House Resolution 1075 is that this body does not trust the judges of the 50 States, nor the 50 legislatures. If we are going to address the problem as they see it, as they see fit to do it, why do we not try to do something constructive? That is what this amendment does. It says secrecy is not in the interests of the American people. In fact, court records across this country, and this is not an anecdote, it is based on fact, court records across this country hide facts that literally kill and maim thousands of people in this country. Two States have done something about it.…”