mr. speaker , i heard an earlier speaker refer to class actions as a game . 
try telling that to the 9-year-old son of janet huggins , a 39-year-old healthy tennessee mother who took vioxx and died in september 2004 . 
tell her family that the effort to protect her family is a game . 
this is not a game . 
this is flesh and blood , the ability to protect your family when something happens to you that you did not have anything to do with . 
this bill is the vioxx protection bill . 
it is the wal-mart protection bill . 
it is the tyco protection bill . 
it is the enron protection bill . 
anyone in the state of washington who saw what enron did to us , stealing $ 1 billion , should not be voting for this bill , because this bill in many ways is the just say no bill to people who are injured by rapacious wrongdoers . 
in three ways it says `` just say no '' to consumers who were hurt by enron , because in the federal courts , if you happen to be in a plaintiff 's group of multiple states and the laws are a little different in the states , do you know what the federal courts do ? 
they throw out the class action . 
do you want to know why the chamber of commerce is spending $ 1 billion to lobby on what seems to be a procedural issue ? 
because they throw out class actions where there is any difference in states , meaning you will not be able to have a class action anywhere , anywhere , federal or state . 
why is this so important ? 
i liken this to right now you have two arms to protect americans , the state judicial system and the federal judicial system . 
this reduces by half the resources that are available to americans to get redress when enron steals from them or when vioxx kills them . 
on 9/11 , did we respond to september 11 by taking out city police officers and only having the fbi ? 
on 9/11 , did we respond by not having local fire departments and only having the coast guard or army fire department ? 
no . 
we recognized that in our system of federalism , americans deserve the full protection , not just half the protection . 
this cuts the available judicial resources in half . 
why is that important ? 
the second reason it just says no to injured americans is the federal courts can not handle these class actions . 
they do not have enough courts and judges . 
you go down and ask how long you will wait today to get into a federal court . 
then add about 4 or 5 years after this bill if this bill were to come into effect . 
you just say no because it takes the keys away from the courthouse . 
the third reason it just says no to good american citizens is it takes from the state attorneys general their ability to protect people . 
that is why the states attorneys general , republican and democrat alike , are adamantly opposed to this bill , because this bill takes cops off the beat ; attorneys generals whose job it is to protect us from what roosevelt called the `` malefactors of great wealth '' are off the beat . 
mr. speaker , we should reject this bill . 
