Providing For Further Consideration Of H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

Providing For Further Consideration Of H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act Of 2009

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman from Colorado yielding me the time, and I will use such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I do admit, I know the gentleman was not here back in 2003, but on September 11, 2003, President Bush formally asked the Congress for legislation to regulate Freddie and Fannie, seeing a problem that was ahead. The ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, the gentleman, Mr. Frank, had a quick response that said there is no problem. There is no problem. That's the last thing we should be doing. Their books are clean. They knew that everything was okay. In 2005, just the next session, legislation did pass and was filibustered in the Senate by Democrats, filibustered by Democrats.

To say that the Wild West exists would be a misnomer in financial services terms. There were people who broke the law. There have always been people who break the law. But the people who broke the law knew that they were breaking the law and did so at the expense of other people's money.

But if you want to talk about recession, let's talk about the recession that we are in right now after 3 years of Democratic control in this House of Representatives. Let's talk about 85 percent increase in spending that this body is going to take up a bill today to spend 85 percent more in the last 2 years by this Democrat-controlled Congress. So, I think that we should be very careful about trying to describe a problem when, in fact, someone else is adding to it and making it worse.

Today we are going to consider a 1,300-page bill which will be a Federal takeover of the financial services industry. That is a heck of an answer. An hour ago, I discussed the flaws of the underlying bill, and now you will hear about a number of amendments that were shut out by our friends, the Democrats. They shut out Democrats. They shut out Republicans. They shut out bipartisan amendments. And here we have on the floor today this massive bill.

I offered a cautionary amendment that would make this bill ineffective if the Government Accountability Office were to find that this bill would kill more than 1 million free enterprise jobs. I stood before the Rules Committee and said that if this bill kills more than 1 million jobs, let's not do it. Forget it. On a party-line vote, my friends in the Rules Committee, the Democrats, voted ``no.'' That's because we are more concerned about politics than we are about the American people, jobs, and the economy.

Also, I offered two commonsense amendments that simply clarify that this bill would not create a bottomless fund for frivolous lawsuits by trial lawyers. The first amendment deals with giving shareholders a nonbinding vote on executive compensation packages. My amendment clarifies that this new vote creates no new private right of action. Without this amendment, trial lawyers will be able to exploit a brand new opportunity to shake down companies for huge payouts. This is a commonsense amendment, and it was rejected by the Rules Committee on a party-line vote. Once again, the Democrats said no, no.

The second amendment I introduced was to protect businesses from frivolous lawsuits and simply clarifies that none of the new registration requirements for investment advisers of private funds shall be construed as creating a private right of action. This is a noncontroversial measure, or it should be, seeking to protect investors from frivolous lawsuits, and this, too, was rejected.

Mr. Speaker, it is my belief that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle care more about creating a trial lawyer bonanza than protecting businesses, consumers, our financial systems and certainly the free enterprise system.

In an effort to clarify the intent of the executive compensation provisions, I introduced an amendment that would have provided sunshine and transparency for shareholders by requiring full SEC disclosure about who is financing that purchase to influence votes on this new, congressionally mandated, nonbinding shareholder resolution. Put simply, this amendment would provide shareholders with access to information about who is trying to influence a vote. Of course not. We would never want to do that. Trial lawyers would hate that. So the Democrat Party up in the Rules Committee, they got it. They complied. No.

As Federal candidates, we are obligated to disclose to the Federal Election Commission the name, occupation, and amount given by our donors. We require this because public interest is advanced by letting voters know who funds each candidate's campaign. This is important. My amendment asks for the same disclosure so that shareholders know who is trying to influence a vote, what people, what organizations, what groups, what consumer advocates, the amount of money, and who is influencing this. Surprisingly, this amendment was also voted down. So much for transparency and the light of day.

The goal of regulatory reform should be to help, not hinder, our economy and to sustain economic growth and job creation. This legislation does the opposite. It takes a one-size-fits-all approach to governing, undermining U.S. economic competitiveness and business growth. That's why so many business groups oppose this. This Democratic solution will only increase government intervention in the financial markets, ration resources, limit consumer choice, raise taxes, dictate wages, and kill jobs.

Mr. Speaker, the motives are clear. My Democrat colleagues are using policy and regulation to force a government takeover of the free enterprise system while paving the road for trial lawyers and killing American jobs. I guess this is nothing new. We should get used to this.

I encourage my colleagues to vote against this rule and the underlying legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source