This doesn't seem like the kind of legislation one would expect a progressive to support. Senators like Lott, Allen, and Lieberman were for it. Kennedy, Feingold, Clinton, Biden, and Levin were opposed. Was there something redeeming about the legislation they missed?
The Senate vote list is
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00009#position">here.
Salon described the Class Action Fairness Act in the article below:
http://dir.salon.com/story/opinion/feature/2005/02/12/class_action/index.htmlErin Brockovich, drop dead
Enviromentalists and others are outraged, but a bill hobbling class action lawsuits, pushed by Bush and his corporate backers, is sailing through Congress.
By Amanda Griscom Little
Feb 12, 2005 | The Erin Brockoviches of America may have a much tougher time going after polluters now that the Class Action Fairness Act is speeding through Congress toward President Bush's desk.
The bill, a long-standing priority of the Bush administration and its corporate contributors, passed in the Senate on Thursday and is expected to sail through the House next week. It will move most major class-action lawsuits from state courts to federal courts, purportedly in an attempt to bring about order and fairness in America's judicial system. Proponents of the bill claim that the current system allows plaintiffs' attorneys to seek out local courts with agreeable track records on rulings and negotiate settlement awards for victims that are inconsistent from state to state.
Howls of protest are being heard from environmental activists, labor and civil rights groups, including the AFL-CIO and the NAACP, and a number of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee, including Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, who said during a hearing on the bill last week, "This isn't the Class Action Fairness Act -- this is the Class Action Moratorium Act."
These critics claim the bill will make it too difficult for wronged citizens to have their day in court and see justice meted out. On Monday, the attorneys general of 15 states sent a letter
to the Senate leadership arguing that the bill would "result in far greater harm than good." That same day, leaders of 16 large green organizations signed a separate letter letter to the Senate warning of serious environmental harm that would come from the bill and requesting that environmental lawsuits be exempted.
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