Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 725) to amend title 28, United States Code, to prevent fraudulent joinder.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Colorado for yielding me the customary 30 minutes for debate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to debate a rule for a piece of legislation that will, in the final analysis, make it more difficult for hardworking Americans to stand up to corporate malfeasance; a piece of legislation that jettisons a history of legal precedent in the blink of an eye because, well, it helps keep the deep pockets of the ultrawealthy as deep as possible.

I learned this law in law school in 1959, but it was in existence way before that time, and now my friends across the aisle are going to tell us that this legislation is needed because it will protect small businesses. This is a feint, folks. Small businesses--indeed all of us--have been and continue to be protected by the century-old jurisprudential rule that the Republicans come here today to upend. In reality, all this bill will do is make it more difficult for regular folks across this country to bring lawsuits against massive corporations.

I shudder to think what would have happened in the critically important asbestos case had this particular law been in effect; and there are many more.

This bill will make it more expensive both in time and treasure for our fellow Americans to hold corporations responsible in the courtroom, a need all the more prevalent today as my friends across the aisle have been busy gutting regulations at a dizzying pace.

Let me make it clear, after we finish, my colleague from Colorado and I are going to go back to the Rules Committee to discuss some more judicial reform. A lot of it is stuff that is going to harm little people in the courts and to cause them not to have access to the court system, as have many of the regulations that we have already disapproved.

Let us be clear, the American people didn't vote for dirty water, but that is what they got with this Republican majority when it voted to repeal a rule that barred corporations from dumping mining debris into our drinking water, helping powerful mining companies by hurting all of the rest of the people in their near curtilage.

The American people didn't vote to weaken the Securities and Exchange Commission, but that is what this majority did when it passed a bill adding more hurdles to the SEC rulemaking process, making it more difficult for the agency to protect consumers, helping Wall Street while putting our economy at risk. I will make a prediction

here. It may not happen right away, but just like we saw the Great Depression that we are just coming out of, we are likely to see that same kind of situation again by virtue of lessening the rules against violations in securities.

The American people didn't vote to drug test Americans on unemployment insurance--degrading the hardworking men and women in this country--but that is what this Republican majority did without delay.

Mr. Speaker, the list really does go on and on. In fact, just yesterday, Republicans continued to chant the corporate clarion call with the unveiling of what I now will call their shameful replacement of the Affordable Care Act. Until there is a resolution, I am going to call it TrumpCare.

My colleagues like to tout how short the bill is compared to the Affordable Care Act. Well, the American people will be surprised to find that, in that brevity, Republicans managed to repeal an Affordable Care Act provision that placed a limit on insurance executives' compensation. Let me repeat that. They managed to repeal a provision that placed a limit on insurance executives' compensation. The insurance executives shouldn't be too surprised by this, however. Repeatedly, Republicans have shown they represent corporate interests over the interests of the American people.

But my Republican colleagues didn't stop there. Their so-called replacement, the Trump bill, also claims to have done away with the individual mandate. What they don't tell you is that, instead, their plan calls for funneling money to the insurance companies in the form of a 30 percent surcharge if an individual goes without health insurance.

Let me tell all the older Americans and 80-year-old people like me to get ready because they are going to be able to charge you just exactly what they want to charge you, and all--mine and yours--insurance is going to go up if this particular measure were to become law.

That is right. Under the Republican healthcare proposal, if you, the American worker, goes without healthcare coverage for longer than 2 months--say you couldn't after a new plan between jobs--then Republicans give insurance companies the right to charge you 30 percent higher premiums. That is ridiculous.

Republicans didn't get rid of the individual mandate. They just turned the mandate into a windfall for insurance companies--a windfall that is going to work out great for insurance executives now that Republicans also removed the cap on their compensation tax deductions.

Mr. Speaker, let us not lose sight of the fact that it took Republicans 7 years of undermining the Affordable Care Act to finally come up with this proposal for replacing it.

Their plan would kick millions of Americans off their health insurance and force millions more to pay higher premiums. It would take health care away from the poor, give tax cuts to the rich, and pull the rug out from under seniors, families, and children.

In fact, this plan is so bad that Republicans literally hid not only their horrific proposal, but themselves, from their constituents. Many of their Members are seeing it just in the last 36 hours. They did this by callously brushing off townhall meeting after townhall meeting.

Why all the smoke and mirrors regarding something as simple as this measure is in light of the fact that they ran on replacing it? Why hide it and why rush it and why go through this charade that most of us know and several Senators said yesterday will be dead on arrival?

Actually, let me ask the American people. Who do you think the Republican Party is representing, you or corporate America?

Mr. Speaker, we are not even a full 2 months into the Republican-led government and, in addition to the unconstitutional Muslim bans--and notice I said ``bans,'' because the old one is nothing but the new one, and the new one is the old one, minus one, and that is the country of Iraq--we have the Republican denial of clear Russian influence in our most recent election.

Let me be very clear about this particular aspect. All of the intelligence agencies have indicated that there was Russian interference in this last election. I don't understand why we are not totally outraged and why there is not extraordinary emphasis on this kind of action against our fundamental democracy.

It is ridiculous that we are around here doing things that we know are not likely to pass the United States Senate and that we are disapproving regulations, yet we cannot get an independent commission to make a determination of how this impact occurred. And we do know that it occurred. I am outraged, and I would hope more Americans would be as well.

We have also seen the almost immediate recusal of the Attorney General due to his inability to be forthright with our Senate colleagues; wild and baseless claims emanating from late-night Twitter storms from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or Mar-a-Lago; and we have a Republican Party dedicated to ensuring that their corporate benefactors can rest easy, no matter the harm they cause to everyday working Americans.

Are we addressing any of these concerns here today?

I would imagine my colleague, rightly, will come back and argue that all the things that I just talked about are not this particular rule. Well, this rule is not even deserving of that kind of consideration, largely for the reason it is yet another structured rule disallowing Members of this House to have an opportunity to have input into a measure that is getting rid of a century of precedent in our judiciary. No, what we are doing is debating obscure civil procedure rules that date back to the days of President Teddy Roosevelt.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for the chairman of the Rules Committee and he knows that.

I just heard him say his insurance went up under ObamaCare. Mine did, too. I also want to remind him that, if this measure as offered yesterday were to become law, his and my insurance is going to go up again.

So we weren't doing all of the things that you said you were going to do by bringing the price down. In addition, we don't even know what CBO's score is with respect to this matter.

You said that you are reading it to understand it now, yet Members are in the Energy and Commerce Committee, as you explained, marking it up, and they don't even know what CBO's score is. I will get back to that in a few minutes about all these people we pay over there to do that work, and then we are not utilizing them.

I also want to address my friend from Colorado and have him understand that I am not precluded from presenting to the American public what legislation we wish to prioritize.

As the gentleman knows, we are currently debating the rule. This is a tool used to set the House agenda and to prioritize consideration of legislation. For that very reason, this is, in fact, the appropriate time for us to explain to the American people what legislation we would like to prioritize and what agenda we would like to pursue in this House. I won't reiterate it, in the interest of time.

I will have a previous question that will demonstrably show what legislation we think we should be addressing. I will do that for as long as I am given the opportunity to manage rules. I will come down here and present the position of the Democratic Party so that they understand our priorities and not necessarily am I hidebound by this rule.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule which would modify the rules of the House to require a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office before any legislation that would amend or repeal the Affordable Care Act may be considered in committee or on the House floor.

The Committee on Ways and Means and the Committee on Energy and Commerce are marking up repeal legislation today. Legislation this significant should not advance through the committee process, let alone the House, without first hearing from our nonpartisan budget experts at the Congressional Budget Office on what the cost and overall impact will be.

Mr. Speaker, we have over 200 employees at the Congressional Budget Office. We pay them collectively--and administrative duties--nearly $50 million a year to advise us at times exactly like this.

House rules already require the Congressional Budget Office cost estimates to be included in committee reports. We are simply trying to improve and strengthen this principle of transparency in order to ensure that we know the cost of this repeal legislation before we vote, and that includes the members in the Committee on Energy and Commerce today who are marking this up so as how they would know the cost before they vote in committee today.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment in the Record along with extraneous material immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

Mr. Speaker, it is not too late for my friends across the aisle to tether themselves to the ideals that have made this country great for generations; ideals that, if we are to be saved from the rushing current we presently find ourselves being dragged down by, will be, as they always have been, those ideals which save us from ourselves.

We are a nation built upon the strength of immigrants, of teachers, of doctors, of mill workers, garbagemen and -women, small-business owners, and farmers. We are a nation of dreamers and innovators, respectful of our individuality and mindful of our unparalleled power once unified in common cause.

At some point, my Republican friends will, I hope, realize that their unabashed and wholesale championing

of corporate interests at the expense of hardworking Americans is a losing cause. For the sake of our environment, our children, our grandchildren, and our unborn children, I hope this day is earlier rather than later.

Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying measure, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, we have seen a number of bills this session which are designed to shut the door on victims of corporate misfeasance and negligence and to nail the door shut. H.R. 725 is part of this wave of legislation.

Like most other bills we have seen this session with brazenly Orwellian titles, the so-called Innocent Party Protection Act of 2017 has nothing to do with protecting innocent parties. Rather, it is just the latest attempt to tilt the civil justice system dramatically in favor of big corporate defendants by making it much more difficult for plaintiffs to pursue State law claims in State courts under the system of federalism designed by our Founders.

Again, this is a familiar experience because the bill addresses a completely nonexistent problem. If there had been a real problem, the Judiciary Committee might have held a hearing in which we could have invited groups to come forward who support tort victims. They could have come and testified about why it was so important for the interests of civil justice for us to pass this legislation.

But there was no hearing at all. We didn't hear any witnesses, much less the testimony of those groups that represent victims of mass toxic torts, asbestos poisoning, lead poisoning, sex discrimination lawsuits--none of it.

In fact, the groups that we would have called, if we were interested in the testimony of victims and people seeking civil justice, oppose this legislation overwhelmingly: the Alliance for Justice opposes it; the Center for Justice and Democracy opposes it; the Consumer Federation of America opposes it; the National Association of Consumer Advocates opposes it; the National Consumer Law Center opposes it; the Natural Resources Defense Council opposes it; Public Citizen opposes it; the Sierra Club opposes it.

Under current law, a defendant may remove a case, alleging State law claims, to a Federal court only if there is complete diversity of citizenship between all plaintiffs and all defendants. If the plaintiff adds an instate defendant to the case solely for the purpose of defeating jurisdiction, this constitutes fraudulent joinder today; and in such circumstances, the case may be removed directly to Federal court.

In determining whether a joinder was fraudulent, the court considers only whether there was any basis for a claim against the nondiverse defendant. The defendant must show that there was no possibility of recovery or no reasonable basis for adding the nondiverse defendant to the suit.

This very high standard has guided our Federal courts for more than a century and it has functioned well, and the bill's proponents offer no objective evidence to the contrary. And again, we have had no hearing. For a new Member of Congress like me, who comes from the Maryland State Senate, I am absolutely astonished and amazed that we would think of overturning a standard fixture in our civil justice system without so much as a hearing as to what the problem is.

H.R. 725 would replace a time-honored standard with an ambiguous one that would dramatically increase the costs and burdens of litigation on plaintiffs in Federal courts. It would try to strip our State courts of their basic powers to hear cases relating to their citizens. This is an assault on federalism.

The measure would require a court to deny a motion remanding to the State

courts unless the court finds, one, that it is ``plausible to conclude that applicable State law would impose liability'' on an instate defendant; two, that the plaintiff had a ``good faith intention to prosecute the action against each'' instate defendant or to seek a joint judgment; and three, that there was no ``actual fraud in the pleading of jurisdictional facts.''

This gauntlet of hurdles suddenly shifts the burden and creates a presumption that a Federal court should hear the case, making it far more expensive and difficult for plaintiffs to have their cases heard in State court.

H.R. 725 would effectively overturn the local defendant exception, which prohibits removal to Federal court even if complete diversity of citizenship exists when the defendant is a citizen of the State where the suit was filed.

The bill's radical changes to longstanding jurisdictional practice reveal the authentic purpose behind the measure. It is simply intended to stifle the ability of plaintiffs to have their choice of forum and, possibly, even their day in court.

In addition, H.R. 725 would sharply increase the cost of litigation for plaintiffs and further burden the Federal court system. For example, the meanings of terms like ``plausible'' and ``good faith intention'' are ambiguous and will spawn substantial litigation over their proper interpretation and application, further postponing decisions and justice.

Additionally, these standards would require a court to engage in a mini-trial during the early procedural stages of the case without any opportunity for the full development of evidence. Again, this would sharply increase the burdens and costs of litigation for ordinary citizens, for plaintiffs, which appears to be, to my mind, the only possible contemplated result of this legislation.

Finally, we need to focus on the fact that this bill offered by the majority raises profound federalism concerns, which I would have hoped they would be attentive to. Matters of State law should be decided by State courts, subject to certain exceptions as set forth in the Constitution.

It was our constitutional design that matters of civil dispute and conflict go to State courts, State judges, and State juries, all of them closer to the people themselves, unless you have a Federal question, a matter of Federal statutory law, a matter of Federal constitutional law, or you have got diversity jurisdiction.

H.R. 725 bulldozes this key federalism constraint and casts a shadow, unnecessarily and improperly, over State courts, the courts of the people. By applying sweeping and vaguely worded new standards to the determination of when a State case must be remanded to State court, the bill denies State courts the ability to decide and, ultimately, to shape the unfolding of State law. This is completely contrary to the design of the Founders, many of them Virginians, like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and George Mason, who wanted the State courts to be the central arena for the resolution of civil conflicts and tort disputes.

Simply put, H.R. 725 tramples State sovereignty and our basic constitutional structure. For these reasons and for the fact that nobody has demonstrated there is a real problem, I urge the House to resist this unnecessary and flawed legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I very much appreciate my colleague's remarks there. I want to make one point before I yield to my distinguished colleague from New York.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague asked us to reckon with the fact that it is emotionally devastating for people to be sued, and, undoubtedly, it is in certain cases. But compare whatever it might feel like to be sued in whatever case he might have in mind with the outrageous emotional devastation caused by asbestos poisoning, by lead poisoning, by mass sexual harassment, sex discrimination, race discrimination, all of the torts that come to dominate what takes place in our courts. So if we are going to have a new emotional devastation standard, I would put the plaintiffs up against the large corporate defendants any day.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from New York (Mr. Nadler).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Johnson).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I think that we are actually progressing in our discussion of the issue because we presently have a law against fraudulent joinder. They simply want to make it far more difficult for plaintiffs to get justice in State courts. The law already makes it impossible to fraudulently join someone.

So in the case offered by the distinguished gentleman from Georgia, I could very much see an out-of-State corporate behemoth that owns nursing homes across the country saying that all of this should be in Federal court because the person who actually committed the sexual assault instate is judgment-proof because they don't have any money and that is not really a plausible opportunity to recover, and, therefore, it should stay in Federal court.

The grand irony here, Mr. Chairman, is that the party which sings lullabies about federalism and states' rights is in the business of stripping our State courts and our people of the opportunity to get into State court. All of this is about forcing everybody into Federal court. I remember a President who recently said in his inaugural address that the whole sum and substance of his administration is to give power back to the States and back to the people, but this legislation is designed to wreck federalism and to force everybody into Federal court where the big corporate defendants and the fancy lawyers have every conceivable advantage over people who are just trying to get justice when they have been injured in their State.

Mr. Chairman, the substantive issues at stake here are obviously complex, and I would invite all Americans to try to research what is going on. But if you don't have the time to actually study the more than a century in which we have had current fraudulent joinder rules and you don't have time to go and examine the bill as submitted by the majority, then just consider the procedure that has gotten us to this point.

There has been no hearing on this bill, there has been no call for this bill by anybody who has been injured in a civil tort case, and all of the groups that try to stand up for citizens against the largest corporations who are bankrolled by billions of dollars and are trying to force everybody these days into arbitration and to shut the courthouse door, all of those groups are opposed to the legislation because they understand what it is going to do.

It is going to make it far more difficult for people to prosecute civil

claims when they have been injured in something like a sexual harassment case, a sexual violence case, a discrimination case, an asbestos poisoning case, or a mass toxic tort. It is going to be far more difficult for people to get justice in their State courts.

Apparently, the interests of the large corporate polluters and inflictors of injuries--tortfeasors--are so important that we are willing to trample the basic principles of our constitutional design which is that these kinds of cases go into State court for State resolution, we reserve the Federal courts for complicated questions of Federal law and real cases of diversity jurisdiction, not phony cases of diversity jurisdiction where they try to eliminate the instate defendant, but real cases of diversity jurisdiction where nobody else is involved.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, the Soto amendment is an excellent amendment and I can't see why anybody would oppose it. I can't see, in the first instance, why anyone would want to keep the people's cases out of the people's courts in their own States.

It seems as if there is a move somewhere in this Congress that is so intent on protecting polluters and the manufacturers of auto defects that they are willing to trample our basic principles of federalism and invade the proper province of the courts.

The Soto amendment would exempt from this bill all cases in which the plaintiff seeks compensation for public health risks like fracking or any other kind of water contamination. Water contamination is devastating to our communities regardless of the source, as demonstrated by the ongoing Flint water crisis in Michigan.

This bill makes it easier for large corporations to remove State law claims to Federal court, where they think they have got a better chance of beating the claims of the small guy. The Soto amendment at least would carve out cases where there are public health risks at stake, such as those caused by fracking, which has been proven to generate earthquakes, well contamination, and the poisoning of local water supplies.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Since this bill was marked up in the last Congress, the very same plausibility standard used in this bill was adopted by the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in which fraudulent joinder cases arise with the greatest frequency.

Last Congress, Ranking Member Conyers said of the bill, it should simply pick one of the existing articulations in the fraudulent joinder standard and codify that into law. At the time, the plausibility approach was applied by some district courts, but just last year, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals adopted the same plausibility standard this bill contains in a case called International Energy.

The Fifth Circuit stated: We must consider whether the plaintiff pleaded ``enough facts to state a claim to relieve that is plausible on its face.'' The plaintiff in that case petitioned for rehearing en banc, but the rehearing was denied, with not a single judge on the Fifth Circuit requesting a vote.

In just the last year, district courts in the Fifth Circuit have issued more than 40 fraudulent joinder decisions without much difficulty and with the results that indicate just the sort of reasonable reform that would occur nationwide when we get this bill passed into law.

So this is about making the system work and opening the door to the Federal courts so companies from foreign states are not unfairly, potentially disadvantaged.

The other piece of this that is easy to neglect is the local defendant. I don't know if the gentleman across the aisle has ever been sued. I have friends who have been sued. It is an emotionally and financially devastating procedure. You have got to take time off from your life and business to defend it. You have got to hire a lawyer, which is incredibly expensive. This is to protect the innocent third parties and open the doors to the Federal courts and just make it fairer and easier.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is not about protecting big corporations. This bill is about protecting the small-business owner or the employee who is fraudulently joined into a case who has to go out and hire his or her own lawyer.

I remember something my law school professor once told me back in the day at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Texas, and it stuck in my mind ever since: When you get sued, you may be able to beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride.

It is expensive, it is emotionally draining, and it is time consuming.

I have no problem at all, and this bill is not designed to protect corporations. It is designed to protect, just as its name states, innocent parties. These are people who are joined solely to defeat diversity jurisdiction. We are just changing the standard slightly to one adopted by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to make it much more fair to these innocent parties.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, in the gentleman from Georgia's example, this bill wouldn't apply at all. If my grandmother were assaulted in a nursing home, I would certainly sue the nursing home company. I would also join the person who actually did it who most likely definitely will be a resident of the State that the lawsuit was going in. There would clearly be a plausible cause of action against that tortfeasor.

Mr. Chairman, I didn't practice personal injury law. I was an agriculture lawyer. But this would be an easy case for me to prove in his example. We are not trying to protect anybody who has done something wrong. We are trying to protect people who are joined into a lawsuit solely for the purpose of forum shopping.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, this really is about trying to stop bringing phony cases in. You are bringing phony defendants in, and that is what we are trying to stop. We have got to be fair about this.

It is not often that we have the opportunity to protect innocent local folks and businesses from costly and meritless lawsuits. This is an opportunity to rein in forum shopping and abuses by trial lawyers and hold them to a good faith standard in litigation. We can do that by passing a bill that is just a few pages long. That is the opportunity we have today.

All this bill does--all this bill does--is say that innocent, local parties--mostly small businesses--can't be added to a lawsuit for forum shopping purposes, and it only prohibits this when there is no plausible case against these small businesses or the case against them isn't brought in good faith.

Who could argue with that?

Mr. Chairman, for that reason, I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment should be roundly opposed for the simple reason it doesn't protect any victims, but it also victimizes local parties in the types of cases covered by the amendment.

The purpose of the underlying bill is to allow judges greater discretion to free innocent local parties--that is, innocent people and innocent small businesses--from lawsuits when those innocent local parties are dragged into a case solely because a plaintiff's attorney wants to do some forum shopping.

These innocent local parties have, at most, an attenuated connection to the claims made by the trial lawyer against some national company a thousand miles away. These innocent local parties shouldn't have to suffer the time, expense, and emotional drain of a lawsuit when the plaintiff can't even come up with a plausible claim. The base bill protects these innocent local parties from being dragged into a lawsuit as a party just to keep the case in State court.

Now, let's bring in this amendment, which denies the bill's protection to innocent local parties adjoined to a lawsuit simply because the legal allegations in the case fall into one arbitrary category and that one is in another. It is terribly unfair.

This amendment would allow these things to happen to innocent people in the name of allowing trial lawyers to scuttle the hydraulic fracking industry through lawsuits. Innocent people are innocent people, and they should be protected against being dragged into lawsuits regardless of the nature of the case.

This doesn't deny anybody access to the courts. It protects innocent parties from being dragged into a case for forum shopping.

Every single one of the gentleman's cases will be heard in court. They will have their day in court and they will have justice based on the facts.

This bill does not protect wrongdoing corporations. This bill protects people who are dragged into a lawsuit strictly for procedural purposes.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I am not going to get sucked into a debate of hydraulic fracking. Being from Texas, we might have a whole difference of opinion on that.

But I do want to point out, with respect to this bill, it doesn't deny anyone access to courts, it doesn't deny anyone access to justice regardless of what claim. I don't think it is fair we take out one particular claim or not one particular claim. That seems to go against fundamental fairness as well.

This bill is all about fairness. It is about fairness to keep people from being dragged into court solely because a plaintiff's attorney needs a local defendant to avoid diversity jurisdiction.

I oppose this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment and support the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I claim the time in opposition.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment continues to victimize innocent local parties just because they happen to be in an insurance case.

The underlying bill is designed to protect folks from being dragged into a lawsuit just to facilitate forum shopping by plaintiffs' attorneys.

The purpose of this bill is to allow judges greater discretion to free these innocent local parties. They are the ones that are suffering as a result of this.

This amendment denies the bill's protection to innocent local parties joined to a lawsuit simply because the legal allegations in the case fall into one arbitrary category rather than another, just like the previous amendment. It is terribly unfair. Innocent people are innocent people, and they should be protected from being dragged into a lawsuit regardless of the nature of the case.

The rules we have developed in this great country to protect the innocent are rules of general application, such as the rules protecting people's rights to have their side of the story told and the rules protecting people from biased or inaccurate testimony.

We should all be appalled by the suggestion that these general protections designed to protect innocent people from criminal liability should be suspended because the case is one of assault and battery or murder or somehow relates to insurance. It is the same kind of logic.

Our country is rightfully proud of its principles providing due process and equal protection, but these concepts are meaningless if they are only selectively applied to some type of cases and not others. And for the same reason, we should all be outraged at the suggestion that the rules of fairness, designed to protect the innocent, should be suspended in civil law cases because a case involves one particular subject matter or another. But that is exactly what this misguided amendment does.

This amendment would allow a plaintiff's lawyer to drag an individual insurance adjuster into a lawsuit even when the applicable State law makes it absolutely clear that only insurers, not individual people, are subject to bad faith claims. How does the sponsor explain this to a person like Jack Stout, why a lawyer pulled him into a bad faith lawsuit targeting State Farm? Mr. Stout was a local insurance agent who merely sold a policy to the plaintiff, met and spoke with the plaintiff once, and had nothing to do with processing the plaintiff's homeowner's insurance claim. A Federal District Court in Oklahoma found he was fraudulently joined and dismissed the claim against him, but under this amendment, the innocent person would have been stuck back in the lawsuit.

What about a person like Douglas Bradley, where the plaintiff's lawyer named him as a defendant in a bad faith lawsuit against an insurer? In that case, the complaint included Mr. Bradley, an insurance agent, as a defendant in the caption of the case. It referred to defendant, singular, not defendants. Throughout the entire pleadings, it didn't even mention his name. A Federal District Court in Indiana dismissed this claim against him as fraudulently joined, but under this amendment, this innocent person would have been stuck back in the lawsuit. It is not fair, it is expensive, and it is emotionally draining to these innocent parties.

For that reason, I urge opposition to the amendment and support of the underlying bill.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 175 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

general leave

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of the rule and the underlying legislation. Current Federal court rules allow trial lawyers to engage in picking their preferred venue. In particular, trial lawyers are able to file suit against the defendant in one State while keeping their case in a different State's court.

When a lawsuit is filed against a defendant in another State, trial lawyers may also sue a defendant in the State where they want the trial to occur. This keeps the case in the lawyers' preferred State court.

Many times the target of the lawsuit is a large, national business. But if the only defendant in the case is an out-of-State business, then the case can be heard in Federal court. Because of this, the trial lawyer will then also sue an innocent local individual or a small business in order to keep the case before a local court.

Usually, the case against the innocent local defendant is dropped once the case is safely back in State court, but it is dropped only after the innocent local defendant has spent time and money dealing with the lawsuit.

This practice is wrong. This practice perverts our justice system and causes needless pain. Trial lawyers should not have the power to subject innocent local individuals and small businesses to costly and time-consuming lawsuits just to rig the system. This kind of abuse of litigation is unjust and must be stopped.

A well-respected Federal appeals court judge, J. Harvie Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, has publicly supported Congress putting an end to this abuse. He has suggested that Congress provide judges greater leeway in making the proper decision on whether a case should be removed to Federal court. He has also suggested that Congress give Federal judges greater discretion to determine early on in a case whether a local party has been fraudulently sued. The Innocent Party Protection Act provides these exact changes.

In 2014 Judge Wilkinson addressed these proposals and said:

That is exactly the kind of approach to Federal

jurisdiction reform that I like because it is targeted.

And there is a problem with fraudulent jurisdiction law as

it exists today, I think, and that is that you have to

establish that the joinder of a nondiverse local defendant is

totally ridiculous and that there is no possibility of ever

recovering.

That is very hard to do.

So Judge Wilkinson went on:

So I think making the fraudulent joinder law a little bit

more realistic appeals to me because it seems to me the kind

of intermediate step that addresses some real problems.

The legislation that this rule makes in order is the solution to the problem that Judge Wilkinson identifies. The underlying legislation would protect innocent local defendants in two main ways. First, the Innocent Party Protection Act allows Federal judges more leeway when determining whether a defendant has been fraudulently joined to a lawsuit for the purpose of keeping the case out of Federal court.

When a judge has a case before his or her court, the judge will have clear guidelines for determining whether the locality of a defendant can be disregarded in establishing whether the case will proceed in Federal or State court. However, this in no way infringes on our State court systems.

The judge must conclude that the defendant will not face a liability under applicable State law. Once that conclusion is reached, the judge then may release the innocent defendant from the case. This provision keeps legal claims in Federal Court that properly belong there by allowing Federal judges to decide whether a local party is truly a legitimate defendant and not simply ensnared in a case for the sole purpose of keeping the case in a trial lawyer-friendly State court. This is a fair and efficient solution to the problem.

Secondly, the Innocent Party Protection Act establishes a uniform approach for evaluating whether a plaintiff has a good-faith intention of seeking judgment against a local defendant.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the right of courts to consider whether a plaintiff has a good-faith intention of seeking a judgment against a local defendant, the application of this principle has not been uniform.

The Innocent Party Protection Act simply codifies this longstanding principle and permits Federal judges to limit a lawsuit to the appropriate defendant.

Plaintiffs with legitimate claims against both a local and out-of- State defendant will be able to pursue their case in State court. However, if no legitimate claim exists, the out-of-State defendant will have the opportunity to have the case heard in a neutral forum. By codifying this principle, we effectively protect innocent individuals and small businesses from bad-faith litigation.

Mr. Speaker, the underlying legislation is a fair solution to one type of frivolous litigation. I support this effort, and I thank Chairman Goodlatte and the Judiciary Committee for bringing this bill to the floor.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind the gentleman from Florida that we are debating the special order of business from rules and that all comments must be relevant to the rule or the underlying bill.

This particular underlying bill has to do with a rule of civil procedure and fraudulent joinders. It does not have to do with the gentleman's healthcare replacement act or his thoughts on the healthcare replacement act, insurance executive's compensation, individual mandates, tax cuts for the rich, Russia, Iraq, although I did appreciate the gentleman's memories from law school the year that I was born.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Mr. Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Iowa for his thoughts.

May I inquire how much time is remaining on my side?

Mr. Speaker, I would advise the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings) that I have no additional speakers.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Mr. Speaker, the rule before the House today is simple. It provides for the consideration of the Innocent Party Protection Act.

Mr. Speaker, we often speak of the Federal regulations or taxes inhibiting job growth in our country, but there are other headwinds that our Nation's job creators face as well. One of those headwinds is frivolous litigation.

I believe strongly that anyone and everyone should have access to justice. Everyone who is injured deserves to have their day in court, and they should have the opportunity to make their case. However, sometimes trial lawyers take advantage of our justice system and seek to gain an unfair advantage against a defendant. Trial lawyers may try to go court shopping in order to rig the case against the defendant.

One way they may seek to secure their preferred venue is to sue a perfectly innocent individual or a small business who happens to reside in the jurisdiction within which the trial lawyer desires to pursue the case. After some time, the innocent party is often released from the litigation, but not before incurring legal costs as well as emotional and opportunity costs. Each time an innocent small-business man or woman has to divert their attention from growing their business and divert resources away from investing in their employees and creating jobs and divert energy away from expanding their involvement in our communities, and instead they are forced to direct their attention toward defending themselves from a frivolous legal claim, each time this happens is a missed opportunity for creating jobs and for realizing economic growth.

The Innocent Party Protection Act defends our small-business men and women from bad faith lawsuits. It provides relief from trial lawyers who seek out friendly courts in order to pursue their cases. It balances the needs of justice with proper restraints on decidedly unjust actions. The Innocent Party Protection Act is a good and equitable solution. I ask my colleagues in the House to support our local businesses and defend them against frivolous lawsuits. Vote ``yes'' on the resolution. Vote ``yes'' on the underlying bill. Rein in this abuse of our justice system. I thank Chairman Goodlatte and Chairman Sessions for bringing this bill before us.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, it is a delight for me to join the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Buck) on a piece of legislation that actually has his name on it, he is responsible for, understands, and is prepared today to fully debate.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from Florida, a member of the Rules Committee, for not only coming down to offer his argument against the facts of the case as they reside today on this important piece of legislation, but I also want to acknowledge that I know the frustration.

I know there is a lot of frustration. There is a lot of frustration from our colleagues who have lost the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. They are in the middle of what might be called wandering, as they have called it, in the darkness or in the doldrums of being deep in the minority.

With that said, there is an agenda that is being laid out before the American people. It happened, Mr. Speaker, directly as a result of what we call an election--an election where all these issues, or most of them that have been discussed by the gentleman, were fully debated not only in a theater near you, but directly in congressional contests, in senatorial contests and the debates for the President of the United States.

The facts of the case are really pretty simple. The Republican Party will be talking about all the issues that the gentleman brought up today right before our eyes. Probably on C-SPAN, trying to compete against us, is a hearing in the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The gentleman, Greg Walden, the chairman of the committee, over the weekend released the text of the chairman's mark, the ``bill'' of the Republican Party of how we are going to look at health care.

It is true that we have Chairman Devin Nunes of the Intelligence Committee looking at the issue that was

brought up of Russia. We have forthrightly, over the weekend, said: All right. We are being asked to look at this. Just so you know, media, American people, we are going to do that. We are going to do what you have asked because we believe it is the right thing to do: open hearings, open debate, acknowledgement of the issues, and a certainty that we will go look into it, and we are going to let you know what we find. That is really where we are.

This morning, at 8 a.m. in my office, I cohosted with the gentleman from Florida an opportunity for the American Bar Association. We brought in, from across this country--I didn't bring them in; they came into my office from across the country--a number of well-established, thoughtful, and articulate people. We didn't ask: Are you Republican? We didn't ask: Are you Democrat? We said: You represent your organization, and we want to hear from you.

This is the kind of leadership that I believe not only myself but also the gentleman, Mr. Hastings, wants to be associated with. We want to be associated with listening to the American people, trying to be thoughtful about what we do and have equal participation.

The gentleman knows that at the Rules Committee yesterday we had a very thoughtful person representing the Republican Party. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) came up. We had Mr. Buck, who was able to come and talk about this issue today.

In fact, it might be an arcane issue to the American people, but it consumes a lot of time, and it has a deliberative effect on the outcome of important cases in Federal courts and State courts across the country. We feel like it is worthy of an afternoon, an afternoon at the Rules Committee, to fully vet the legislation and an afternoon here on the floor of the House of Representatives.

But like any other good majority, we have a lot of other things going on, and we are looking at the Affordable Care Act, how it worked and how we might thoughtfully replace it. We are looking at the issues related to Russia. We are looking at the American Bar Association.

Members of Congress are extremely busy, but, Mr. Speaker, I think, with great respect, we should give the author of the bill, Mr. Buck, his time to come and thoughtfully explain why we are doing what we are doing.

I am just a dadgum chairman of the committee. I just do the things that I hope are necessary to look at every single item and being fair-- being fair in the ability that people have to come and bring their ideas and trying to be fair in trying to bring them down here.

So I want to thank the gentleman for acknowledging this body is busy. This body is engaged in, as we speak, a public, open debate about what direction health care should go.

What I would like to offer is my evaluation of where we are going to be. We are going to be at a point where we do not have to scare people about where we have been or why we are going to a place.

I am on what is known as ObamaCare. As a Member of Congress, I am legally required to be on ObamaCare for health care. But, Mr. Speaker, it is twice as expensive as what I had before; and it is not working for me, it is not working for my family, and it is not working for a lot of people.

So we are trying to look at how we might carefully, thoughtfully, artfully work with the American people, so we put the bill up and let you see it. We don't have to pass it to find out what is in it. We are trying to read the bill and understand it first.

Mr. Speaker, it is not a pledge. It is a hope that every single Member of this body will understand what is in the bill before they can respectfully, whether somebody disagrees or agrees with it, explain the bill for what is correct.

What is correct about the bill is this: if you like your own doctor, you can keep your own doctor. If you like your own healthcare plan, even if it is ObamaCare, you can do that, too.

The Republican Party is open about what we believe. We are trying to be thoughtful with the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I believe, with the leadership that we have of Paul Ryan who has attempted to work through a difficult issue, the American people will understand why Republicans not only won the election, but why Republicans have better ideas in health care, too.

Mr. Speaker, without continuing the dialogue, I would like to at least respond to the gentleman and look right at you, Mr. Speaker, and tell you, in fact, we are going to have a CBO score. We are going to have a CBO score when we have an agreed-upon bill. This is a process that is open. The bill is being proposed. The bill is going to be debated. Then there are going to be votes.

For them to presume that they know the score before they know the outcome is not the way the chairman of the committee looks at it. Mr. Walden looks at it that he is going to let the committee vote and come up with a bill, and there are significant changes that could happen one way or another. I think it would be a presumptuous viewpoint to say here is the bill and here is the score, take it or leave it. I know Chairman Walden very well, and Greg Walden is trying to operate off openness and the agreement to look at the bill. When it is finalized, a score will become available. I appreciate the gentleman bringing this issue up.