Fairness in Class Action Litigation Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt suits arising out of the Fair Housing Act or the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

I offer my amendment today, Mr. Chairman, out of a real concern about the consequences the bill will have on social justice issues. One of these issues that is very dear to me is the disparate access to financial products for African Americans. That is the reason that I, before I became a Member of Congress, created a credit union for my area in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

We are still seeing discrimination in housing and auto financing and insurance products in my home district of Milwaukee. This is not something, Mr. Chairman, that happened in the good old days. We have witnessed discrimination in mortgage loans as recently as 2012.

As a member of the Financial Services Committee, we have learned about the CFPB's role in cracking down on auto lenders who discriminate against minorities. Folks who have the same credit score, if your name is Rodriguez or Barack Obama Jones, suddenly your auto loan would be at a higher rate.

Class actions are an important tool to fight back. For example, in Adkins v. Stanley, a class action suit was filed against Morgan Stanley for practices through a mortgage lender that had a significant impact against an entire African American community. In Detroit, Michigan, from where our distinguished ranking member hails, the practices led to filling these communities with high-risk subprime loans, leading up to the 2008 housing crisis. I would commend any of you to go to Detroit and see the result of that discrimination where entire communities have been eviscerated.

Actions helped to uncover and fight back against auto finance lender practices that used these subjective criteria, whether your name was Rodriguez or Barack Obama Jones, to determine creditworthiness. This practice was found to have a disproportionate impact, charging these higher interest rates for minorities compared to White borrowers with the exact, similar credit ratings.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, that argument is not a good argument because when you think of the example of just, say, Morgan Stanley, if there was someone who, in Detroit, Michigan, lost their house through the subprime lending, that has as much impact on that person as the person next door who was underwater and couldn't sell their home and couldn't repair it because of the impact on their next-door neighbor.

This notion that they have to be injured in exactly the same way really flies in the face of logic and, of course, flies in the face of justice.

I would ask Members to adopt my amendment. It is common sense. It is just. There are so many cases against minorities, in particular, that would be adversely impacted through this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.
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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, my amendment would exempt pay equity lawsuits arising from title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Equal Pay Act.

Today, the wage gap for women is a very real experience, not only for those women, but for families in the United States workforce. According to the National Women's Law Center, the gender wage gap amounts to over $10,000 a year in median income.

But this bill, H.R. 1927, takes away one of the only effective tools that women in the workplace have to narrow the wage gap. That is through class action suits filed under title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Equal Pay Act. This bill would, to borrow Judge Posner's term, really drive a stake through the heart of the Equal Pay Act or the Civil Rights Act.

This bill will make it harder to certify members of a class in pay equity cases because each detail relating to the type and scope of the damage is often unique to the woman who was injured. For example, a woman involved in a class could have a different type of job, different number of years working for a company, different wages, different benefits, and if the company is discriminating against all women, across all the job categories, they would not be certified as a class unless they made exactly the same pay, worked there exactly the same number of years, which, Mr. Chairman, is ludicrous.

This bill would also make it harder for women in pay equity cases because, at the certification stage, women wouldn't have the same information about each other to know whether or not they could be in the same class.

Mr. Chairman,

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate my colleague for that exhaustive explanation and definition of scope.

Common sense just ain't common, so we cannot rely on common sense.

I just want to say that the courts already require a plaintiff seeking class action certification to make substantial showings that they have, in fact, been injured. That is our argument, that they have to have the same scope and that we need to reserve the benefits for those at the top so that women who are discriminated against in a firm--we are only concerned with those women who are going to lose the most money because they didn't get a management position. We are not going to be concerned with the women who worked in the janitorial services and were discriminated against.

I think that there is a smoking gun here when you hear our opponents make these furious arguments and regale us with definitions of scope, where the courts have already done that. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. MOORE. Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

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