WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate appears to be nearing a final vote on a bill that would give President Bush one of his top second-term priorities by shifting many class action lawsuits from state to federal courts.þþBy successfully fighting off Democratic amendments Wednesday, the GOP-controlled Senate has so far preserved an agreement with the Republican-controlled House to move the legislation through unchanged.þþIf senators can finish the carefully compromised measure Thursday without allowing major change, the House plans to pass it next week and quickly get it to Bush for his signature.þþBush is urging senators to pass the measure without changing the version he is ready to sign.þþ``They're trying to amend the bill,'' Bush said Wednesday of the Democratic efforts. ``That's code word for they're trying to weaken the bill. They're trying to make the bill not effective.''þþBush and other supporters say the bill, which would send most multistate class action lawsuits to federal court instead of allowing them to be heard in state courts, is needed because lawyers try to file their lawsuits in friendly state court jurisdictions where they are more likely to get large payouts.þþSenators who back the bill say greedy lawyers make more money from such cases than do the actual victims, and that lawyers sometimes threaten companies with class action suits just to get quick financial settlements.þþ``This bill, like most, is not perfect. But I believe that it represents the best that can be done to solve what is a real problem in our legal system,'' said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.þþOpponents of the bill say it is aimed at helping businesses escape multimillion-dollar judgments for their wrongdoing and would hurt lawyers trying to litigate those cases.þþ``It is wrong to allow corporations to avoid responsibility simply because they harmed a large number of people in small amounts rather than a small number of people in large amounts,'' said Nan Aron, president of the liberal Alliance for Justice.þþThe Senate rejected, 60-39, an amendment by Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., that would have made state attorneys general exempt from the legislation's restrictions.þþThe bill's opponents contend federal judges routinely dismiss class action suits that deal with multistate law, saying that applying more than one state's law to a case makes it too unwieldily. If this legislation passes, those case will have nowhere to be heard, since state courts will be banned from hearing them, they said.þþBut the Senate, on a 61-38 vote, barred an amendment that would have prevented federal judges from dismissing cases simply because the laws of more than one state would apply.þþThe Senate also rejected, on a 59-40 vote, an amendment that would have exempted civil rights and labor class action lawsuits.þþ``This is another example of big business stepping on the rights of workers who are fighting for decent wages on the job,'' said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
