Passage of the Class Action Fairness Act
PASSAGE OF THE CLASS ACTION FAIRNESS ACT
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I would like to thank my colleagues for supporting S. 5, the Class Action Fairness Act, which we passed last week and which is set to be considered in the House this week. This little bill that Senator KOHL and I first introduced back in the 105th Congress is finally at the finish line. Little did I know it was going to take five Congresses to get it done. But we had to do it. The abuses in the class action system are real, and this is a good first step at fixing some of them.
Although the Class Action Fairness Act was always a bipartisan bill, we had to negotiate numerous compromises to garner enough support to defeat a filibuster here in the Senate. In the end, this bill is a good example of what we can accomplish when we work together in a bipartisan fashion. The final passage vote of 72 to 36 is proof positive of that.
So I am pleased that we are on the verge of getting class action reform to the President's desk. There are many colleagues that I would like to thank in the Senate for their leadership and support--Majority Leader FRIST, Republican Whip MCCONNELL, Chairman SPECTER, Senator HATCH, Senator SESSIONS, Senator KOHL, and Senator CARPER. I also want to thank their staff as well for a job well done--Allen Hicks, Eric Ueland and Sharon Soderstrom with the majority leader; John Abegg and Kyle Simmons with Senator MCCONNELL; Harold Kim, Michael O'Neill and David Brog with Chairman SPECTER; Kevin O'Scanlin with Senator HATCH; William Smith and Cindy Hayden with Senator SESSIONS; and John Kilvington with Senator CARPER. I would like to acknowledge in particular Jeff Miller with Senator KOHL, who worked closely with my staff on this bill over the years. Finally, I would like to thank Rita Lari Jochum, my Judiciary Committee chief counsel, who has worked on this bill since 1998, and whose legal skills and determination were instrumental in getting this bill passed in the Senate.
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