Providing for Consideration of H.R. Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act; Waiving A Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii with Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions Reported From the Committee on Rules; and Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules

Floor Speech

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, have our colleagues across the aisle forgotten that the right to a jury trial was as essential a cause of the American Revolution as was representative democracy and the denial of voting rights itself?

John Adams said: ``Representative government and trial by jury are the heart and the lungs of liberty. Without them, we have no other fortification against being ridden like horses, fleeced like sheep, worked like cattle, and fed and clothed like swine and hounds.'

The massive suppression of trial by jury rights by British authorities was a critical cause of our Revolution. One of the charges that Thomas Jefferson leveled against the British in the Declaration of Independence was ``depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury.''

Now, today, we have not a foreign king and government trying to impose a closed Star Chamber on the American people but certain large corporations chartered by the States that seek to divest consumers and employees of their sacred trial by jury and due process rights by conditioning their employment or their market agreements on relegating them to closed-door binding arbitration sessions where all of their rights are vanquished and the whole process, from start to finish, is skewed in favor of the corporations that control and design the proceedings.

This legislation, the FAIR Act, vindicates the most essential rights of the American people.

Amazingly, the GOP floor leader admits that forcing victims of sexual harassment into compulsory arbitration proceedings is unfair and agrees with us that they should not be forced into compulsory arbitration. She would like us to strip everything else out of the bill and boil it down to that.

If it is not fair for victims of sexual harassment to be forced into forced arbitration, why is it fair for victims of racial harassment, consumer fraud, wrongful termination, or any of the other causes of action that she would exclude from the legislation?

I am glad that the gentlewoman agrees with us on the importance of not subjecting victims of sexual harassment to closed-door Star Chamber proceedings, but this concession from the minority gives away the whole game. If it is unfair to coerce them, it is unfair to coerce everyone else, too.

The key to understanding this legislation is that any consumer or employee who wants to enter into binding arbitration with a corporation can do so and is perfectly free to do so after a conflict has arisen, but it should not be compelled as a condition of employment, purchase, or rental, essentially elevating the power of corporations that have been chartered by the government over the essential constitutional rights of the people.

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