Prometheus 6   

Most Democratic senators show some sense

Class-Action Legislation Fails in Senate
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, Oct. 22 -- Senate Democrats effectively killed a measure on Wednesday that would push certain class-action lawsuits out of state courts and into the federal judiciary, handing President Bush and the Republican leadership a significant defeat.

The bill failed on a procedural motion by just one vote when the Republican leadership got 59 of the 60 votes needed to block a Democratic filibuster.

"We just witnessed a missed opportunity to address a critically and vitally important issue," Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, said after the vote. He said he was "clearly disappointed" by the outcome, but vowed to try to reach a compromise.

President Bush has made changes in tort law a big feature of his agenda in Congress, and it is a staple of his speeches. Business groups had aggressively lobbied for the class-action legislation, which would remove most class-action suits with at least 100 plaintiffs and at least $5 million at stake from state courts and relocate them in the federal courts. Legal experts say federal courts offer a more favorable climate to corporations. The House had already approved a version of the bill.

The bill would also cover "mass tort" suits involving personal injury, like those filed by women who believe they have been harmed by silicone breast implants. The mass tort provision had been stripped from the bill when it was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, but Republican leaders restored it before they brought the bill to the floor.

"Mass tort is something most of our colleagues didn't bargain for, but it's in this bill," Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota, the Democratic leader, said during the debate. He added, "This legislation is killing a housefly with a shotgun."

…The vote was a cliff-hanger; Republicans knew going in that they had 57 votes. Business lobbyists waited nervously in the reception room outside the Senate chamber to learn the outcome, as did lobbyists for trial lawyers and consumer groups.

Eight Democrats and one independent, Senator James M. Jeffords of Vermont, joined 50 Republicans in voting to allow the bill to move forward; Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama was the only Republican to favor blocking the bill.

Several Democrats who were lobbied hard by business leaders, including Charles E. Schumer of New York, Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, voted against the bill.

Mrs. Landrieu cast the final vote against the bill, and complained afterward that Senate Republicans were unwilling to make certain concessions to win her vote. Among other things, Mrs. Landrieu wanted the mass tort provision stripped from the bill, and she wanted a provision that would allow unclaimed settlement coupons to be donated to charity, not claimed by the lawyers or the defendants, as is now the case.

"They knew my vote was important. I knew my vote was important," she said, adding, "I wanted to go last, because I wanted to send a signal that the Landrieu vote would not have been that difficult to get."