Pete Sessions

I have three questions. First, do you know whether the attorneys in the Minnesota case are being compensated on a contingent fee basis, that is, in which they would get a percentage of the recovery, and in many of these States they have…

Did the Senator know that this Senator refused to take money from the tobacco industry as attorney general and has sought tougher laws against the sale of tobacco to children and is not a tool or pawn of any tobacco company? In fact, I am…

That is the first one. Second, is the Senator aware that, with regard to the receipt or copying of the documents, those are expenses which are not covered by this bill, or at least this bill provides a full payment of expenses to attorneys…

Would the Senator be agreeable to this amendment if we reworded it, in fact, make it apply to the tobacco lawyers? I will certainly feel good about that. The reason it was done this way is because many of the plaintiffs' attorneys…

My understanding is that States that have settled have conditioned their settlement on the requirements of the congressional global settlement. If there is no congressional action, then their settlements will be in full force and effect…

I would like to respond. I think you raise a very interesting point. First, I say it is unusual that the States would come to this body and ask the Congress of the United States to ratify a lawsuit, but they have. Our bill does not take…

I do think that, depending on the wording of these understandings between the attorneys general and lawyers, that the fee may be a percentage of the whole $500 billion that the Senator referred to.

This Member says that I would oppose strongly any more funding of a $22 million election, and I am prepared to vote against it in that regard.

And they chose to exercise that option. I think this body has the right to say we don't think we should exercise the next option; at least we are not going to fund it.

Let's look at what the Department of Justice memorandum says. The point of the Department of Justice memorandum about the 1996 election was that it concluded the Departments of Justice and Labor believed they should be involved in…

I don't think we would be in violation of the decree to have the Government--and we speak for the Government, don't we?--say to them we don't intend to fund the second one.

That is what the Department of Justice, the Clinton Department of Justice, memorandum says, that it has the option. I think that's the most plain reading of it, and I suggest to you the union agreed to this reluctantly, preferring not to…

Are you reading the first full paragraph there? It doesn't say 1996 election. It says they consent to supervision of any election. That means obviously the United States did not intend to supervise all those elections. The United States…

The U.S. Government, because of its concern about the mob influence of a union, protected itself with the right to assert, the right to provide an election officer in supervision, to supervise the election. So we don't have to exercise…

I thank my colleague. In looking at the consent decree. We talked a lot about it. I think we should look at it and see what it actually says with regard to the effort in the 1991 election. What I read it to say--perhaps there is more than…

I think it says that it gives the United States clearly the option to do so, and pay for that election or not. In fact, I have in my hand a memorandum of the U.S. Department of Justice which says just that--interprets it just that way. It…

I would first like to say I appreciate the leadership of the Senator from Oklahoma. Senator Inhofe has done an outstanding job in working to preserve the defense of his Nation, and his comments about our lack of preparedness are very…

Let's imagine a single mother who is teaching school with three children ages 17, 15, and 12 hoping to save money for college and just getting by. The transmission breaks on the car, and there is a $400 bill. Who should decide who ought to…

In summary, I would like to say that House Concurrent Resolution 102 talks directly about the problem that we have about Government spending and overregulation in our Government. Whereas there are $3 trillion 520 billion that are spent…

I also believe that from what I have seen in the Fifth District of Texas, that many of the people who are at home, who are operating these home businesses, are women, women who are trying to not only make a go of it with their marriage and…

This deduction that I believe the gentleman is talking about is one that we would call pretax. This is the exact same pretax tax treatment that is given by corporations. So what we are trying to say is, these people who are self-employed…

This is correct, Mr. Speaker. So what we are talking about tonight, and I thank the gentleman for that insight that he offered, what we are trying to do is to make sure that the IRS gets it. Our independent contractors have already been…

We believe that what it will do is put very clearly and, let me get to the language, if I can, that will talk about this instance. What we are going to do is to make sure that codified within the law that we talk about what is an…

I rise as a member of the conservative action team to point out what we are for, what we have talked about, and that is that we believe that there should be more tax cuts that are available from this bill. What we are standing up tonight…

So the question is, is that we should take these women who have babies, children that are under 6, and to exempt them simply because they might have children that they have to take care of?