Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is exactly right. That came out at the hearings. Witnesses have attested to it.

Mr. HOLLINGS. No, we created a problem.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Exactly.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Exactly.

Mr. HOLLINGS. The distinguished Senator from California is manifestly correct. We all live in a real world, and then what really happens, as we learned from Rosemary Woods, if you want to get rid of evidence, if you want to lay the blame--I am the lawyer for the computer company, and when I am notified about this particular claim and it comes across my desk, let's find out now why this thing really occurred, and if we can put it off and save the company some money on that part made in India, then we will get on to that or we will move it around here. What that does is it gives them 60 days to prepare all the defenses and even engage in interrogatories and depositions, which you are not allowed to do because you are the one required under this bill to stand back and cool off; whereas, I can come immediately then with my interrogatories and my depositions and pretty well have the case lined up during that 3-month period. Then I will know whether it pays for the company, because I am the lawyer, and I want to stay on it as a lawyer, my game is to save the company money. I say: Look, don't worry about that; we are going to send them to India to try that case and let them keep on making motions, because it is going to cost you $30,000 to fix it. They just sent a doctor in New Jersey $25,000 as a fix for a purchase he made the year before for only $13,000. That is why it is silent. Everybody knows how they draw up these bills and what really occurs. The company is allowed to engage in all kinds of shenanigans-- depositions, interrogatories, prepare defenses--and the poor plaintiff, the injured party, is going out of business; he is losing his customers. He tells his employees: I cannot make this monthly payment. I am not getting any money. I am closing down. The employees are angry. What the Senator from California has in her bill is just perfect: a fix. That is all we want. Out with the lawyers, in with the fix. That is the Boxer amendment. The way the bill reads, the Senator has it analyzed correctly.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield? I want to credit Senator Durbin for educating this Senator. These fellows have to come over from the House and tell Senators how to act. I never heard ``gentlelady,'' but now I like it. If the distinguished gentlelady will yield, I have been here since, of course, the beginning of the debate. It has been what they call predatory legalistic, predatory legal practices, lawsuits, racing to the courthouse, running to the courthouse, picking out someone down the line with deep pockets. The distinguished Senator, as I understand it, is only asking for a fix. The amendment is not asking to race to the courthouse, but to race away from the courthouse.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Just get a fix. And now they don't even want to agree on fixing the thing.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Maybe if we keep to this debate long enough, they, on the other side of the aisle, will ask us to send money to the poor computer industry. We ought to take up contributions. We have to change the laws for them. All we want to do is get the computer fixed, but now they even oppose that. Is that the case? Isn't that the amendment, really--to get it fixed? It has nothing to do with bringing a legal proceeding or economic loss or any of that?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. When the Senator came to the floor, I said, ``Senator, Senator McCain wants to get rid of it, and I do. Will you agree to 20 minutes, 10 to a side? Senator McCain is ready to yield back his 10 minutes.'' Now, that is the way it was at noontime today. Here now, at quarter past 3, we are running around like a dog chasing his tail trying to find out why in the world, when they are having an ice cream party all over the grounds around here, you and I are trying to get the work of the Senate done, and they can't give us a good excuse. When you say, ``All right, I will amend it,'' and you are bound to agree, so we can move on, they say, ``No, no, we don't want to agree to agree.''

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, commenting with respect to the attention that the Senator from California gives to consumers, and the comments made about frivolous lawsuits, I am an expert witness on frivolous lawsuits. I can tell you categorically that the courts will take care of frivolous lawsuits quickly. You can see it. I could mention some that have been in the news with respect to the computer people very recently. But the reason I say an expert witness is because I used to bring individual injury suits with respect to the citizenry around my hometown and sometimes in bus cases. I had a good friend who was a professor at the law school when I was there, and thereupon the chairman of the board of the South Carolina Electric and Gas, which operated the city bus transit system, an event I said I had not been involved with, but that is wrong. These corporate lawyers get really lazy. They get too used to the mahogany walls, the oriental rugs, somebody with a silver pitcher and some young lady to run in and give them a drink of water. Rushing to the courtroom and trying cases is work. I remember saying to a man named Arthur Williams: I could save you at least $1 million if I were your lawyer. Later on he retained me. Right to the point: The first or middle of the month of November, what I call the Christmas Club started to develop. Nobody could get on the transit bus who didn't slip on a green pea, get their arm caught on a door, or the door didn't jerk open and they fell and hurt their back. This is back in the late 1950s when we were trying these cases. I said we should try these cases. The claims were around $5,000 to $10,000. The settlements were half, $2,500 or $5,000. The lawyers thought they were too important to go to court to try cases. Let me tell about a lawyer who was willing to try cases. His name was Judge Sirica. He wrote a book. While he was writing that book, he was being driven around Hilton Head by myself. He looked at me and said: Senator, don't ever appoint a district judge to the Federal bench who hasn't been in the pitch. I said: Judge, you mean trying cases? He said: That is right. He said when he got out of law school he flunked the bar exam three times. When he finally passed that bar exam, he didn't have any clients, he had to go to magistrate court and take what trials he could pick up. He said he got pretty good at it. He said after a few years, Hogan and Hartson asked: Will you come on board and start trying our cases? It is work. Frivolous cases--they are small cases, some of them without foundation, a lot of them with foundation--but lawyers with this billable hour nonsense have gotten awfully lazy as a profession. Talk about delays. When lawyers have billable hours, the opposition wants to play golf in the afternoon. We don't have to go to the judge, I will give you a continuance. You agree, and the poor client is sitting there paying for the billable hours. In any event, Judge Sirica said when he walked in the first day and listened to the witness, he told counsel to meet him in chambers. This is the first day of trial. When he got them back in chambers, he said: You are lying, and I'm not going to put up with this nonsense in my courtroom. He said: I could tell it from my trial experience. You are starting tomorrow morning, and you are going to bring out the truth, and you are not going to put up with these kinds of witnesses. It is not going to be just a citation and dock your pay. I will put you in jail if you all don't straighten up and start trying the cases in the proper manner. He said that broke Watergate. To this practitioner, that goes right around to the so-called frivolous cases that all the politicians are running around about. It is work. You don't run to the courthouse. As I pointed out earlier today, if you filed a case this afternoon, you would be lucky to get a trial in that courtroom in the year 1999, I can tell you that. The civil docket is backed up that much. I don't know of any court that can actually get to trial. Who uses that? Not the fellow making the motions and paying the expenses and time and the depositions and interrogatories. The corporate billable hour lawyer, he likes that. He keeps a backup. It is to his interest you don't dispose of justice too quickly. All during the year, he has money coming in. He knows he is a winner regardless of what happens to his client. They are engaged in predatory practices, frivolous lawsuits, and are running to the courthouse. The Senator from California is rendering a wonderful service. This is about consumers. The amendment of the Senator from California seeks to get us away from the courthouse, get us away from lawyers, get us away from law, get away from legal loopholes, hurdles, and jumps. The businesses say: Just give me a fix. I have to do business, and I don't want to lose my customers, service, and reputation. So she requires a fix--all for the consumer. That is what the Senate and the entire Congress has heard. There is no question, looking at the results at the State level, how they have turned back all of these things, that is why they are coming to Washington after the ``turn backs.'' Look at all of the States that have debated this issue. The only State in the glossary of State action that passed a Y2K business immunities bill, the only State, is the State of Texas.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am glad to yield.

Mr. HOLLINGS. They have not sent me any word. The press sent me word about the software alliance. I know the Senator from Arizona, the chairman of our committee, that distinguished Senator, was intent on getting rid of this bill. He told me that early this morning. We got the witnesses lined up, we talked down the witnesses, we made them get the time agreements, and he had an important commitment he made to leave around 12. He tried to extend it to 12:30. During that half hour he said: I got us down to two amendments. I said: All I know of is the Boxer amendment. I have now talked Senator Torricelli into not presenting his. I hasten to add, I am glad I did not talk Senator Boxer out of her amendment, because it is the only amendment that really brings into issue the matter of consumers we are trying to defend today. He said: Don't worry. He came back to me twice and said: I have it; I think I worked that out; you go right ahead. I said: I don't want to vote with you not here. He said: Go ahead; these commitments have been made. Everybody knows Senator McCain's position on the bill. We will have to have a conference when it passes. There will be a conference report. I pressured Senator Boxer and told my colleagues we can vote. Several said: No; we have a lunch hour; let's vote at 2 o'clock. And then 2 o'clock became 2:30, and 2:30 became 3 o'clock, and 3 o'clock became 3:30. Now it is 10 minutes to 4. I have tried to be diligent in managing the bill and moving the business of the Senate. There is nothing more I can say. I am waiting on the leadership. This is above my pay grade. We can go ahead and call the roll. I am sure the distinguished staffer on the other side of the aisle is ready to call the roll. He has worked hard. We are all ready. This is above our pay grade.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, you learn to study these things. You look closely, and you finally realize what is happening. I remember an old-time story about the poll tax days and the literacy testing of minorities in order to vote. In South Carolina, a minority came to the poll prepared to vote, and a man presented him with a Chinese newspaper. He says, ``Here, read that.'' He takes the paper and turns it around all kinds of ways, and he says, ``I reads it.'' The man asks him, ``What does it say?'' The minority says, ``It says ain't no poor minority going to vote in South Carolina today.'' They know how to get the message. In turn, I can get this message. This goes right to what is really abused as an expression, ``Kill all the lawyers.'' To Henry VI, Dick Butcher said, ``We have to kill all the lawyers.'' What they were trying to do was foster tyranny, and they knew they could not do it as long as they had lawyers available to look out for the individual and individual rights. Say I am the lawyer and I have a lot of work. Generally speaking, I am a successful lawyer. And someone comes to me in January or February with a Y2K problem, and I am saying I am not handling those cases, you ought to try to see so-and-so, wherever we can find somebody, because the entire thrust is in order to really get anything done and get a result I know that I am limited. I can't take care of the poor small businessman and the lost customers. I can't take that small businessman and his employees that have had to take temporary leave because his business is down. I can't take care of the other economic damage like the lost advertising which has come about while his competition takes over. I have to tell him it is the crazy law that they passed up there in Washington. But that is how things are getting controlled whereby you just come in. So I have to write a letter on your behalf, and after I write that letter, 30 days, then another 60 days is the so-called cooling-off period. Then, if nothing happens, which apparently you tried to get it fixed and nothing has happened, I have to draw pleadings and file and everything else. It all comes down to $5,000 or $10,000 for a computer. I have spent $5,000 of my time and costs, unless you are rich enough to start paying me billable hours. I spend $5,000 for much of my costs and staff and hours of work myself. The most I can do is get you back half of a computer. It is a no-win situation. They have passed a law in essence not just for rushing to the courtroom or courthouse, as they talk about, but to make sure that nobody wants to handle a case of that kind because there is no way to make an honest recovery to make it partially whole. You just totally lose out. They know what they are doing when they oppose the bill to get the thing fixed. That is what I was thinking. I know with all the State action and the moving forces behind it because I saw it last year. All you have to do is run for reelection and go from town to town and meeting to meeting all over your State. You learn your State. You learn the issues. You learn the opposition. You learn the movements afoot --or the NRA with respect to rifles. You learn about the abortion crowd. You learn about the other groups that have come in now with respect to any and every phase of lawyers. It is sort of ``kill all the lawyers''--take away, holding up the lawyers for everybody to vote against. But the consumers are the ones who suffer. The distinguished Senator from California ought to really be commended for finally bringing--after 3 days of debate--this into sharp focus. Lawyers, one way or the other, are not going to be handling these cases. Trial lawyers have bigger cases to handle. But I can tell you here and now that consumers and small business are going to suffer tremendously. Almost since I opposed the bill I have felt that it serves them right. Maybe I will prove I was right in the first instance, and maybe they will start sobering up with this intense messianic drive that they have on foot to ``kill all the lawyers.'' That looks good in the polls. That is why we don't do anything about Social Security or campaign finance or budgets or deficits or Patients' Bill of Rights and the important things. But if we can get that poll-- and if that poll will show something about the lawyers--then we can get a bill up here, take the time to amend it, and then when we want to cut it off and argue everybody into doing so, and then finally agree that we can all agree and get rid of it, they say no way.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to table the motion. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to. Unanimous Consent Agreement

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Senator from Washington.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. HOLLINGS. I hold in my hand an Institutional Investor. This is the real official document, the investment industry. They had a survey of the Congressional Financial Officers Forum of all the large corporations in the country. To the question, Do you feel your company's internal computer systems are prepared to make the year 2000 transition without problems, do you realize that 88.1 percent said yes, and only 6 percent said no? So that is 6 percent that have another 6 months to take care of it. With respect to actually getting and working out with their suppliers, do you realize that 95.2 percent said they have worked with their suppliers and are ironing out all the problems? It really verifies exactly the astute nature of the computer industry, as described by the Senator from California. You are right on target, and it hasn't been said on the floor as you are saying it, with authority, too. I commend the Senator.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Well, going further, does the Senator realize, for example--we are going to have lunch with the distinguished leader, Mr. Dell of Dell Computer--as of December 14 of last year, in their 10-Q report they state: ``All products shipped since January 1997 are Y2K- certified. Upgrade utilities have been provided for earlier hardware products''?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Does the distinguished Senator realize ``no material''--no material cost? So they are not looking for a bill. I hope we do not pass a bill. Then, when the world ends, as some of the Senators around here are saying, and the computer industry is ruined, Dell will be the only one left. I will be all for them. That is really the history of all of them. I have Yahoo. I have all the rest of them here listed. But I think that is the point the distinguished Senator from California is making, who would know better than any, that this is a most responsible industry. They are not trying to get rid of the old models. This particular legislation, the Senator's amendment makes sure they do not get rid of the old models. It is like a car company saying: We are going to bring out a new model come January 1, so all the old models that we sell all this year are going to have all kinds of gimmicks or glitches. But let's make them 90 days or let's let them get a letter back or something else of that kind. If the automobile industry came to Washington and asked for that, we would laugh them out of court.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Certainly.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as I understand the Senator from Washington, he has not propounded the request. Listening to the request, this Senator is perfectly willing to go along with every element of it, save and excepting right after the disposition of the Sessions and Gregg amendments, we then vote on final passage. I don't understand the delay, because those two amendments can easily be handled within the hour. So we can vote early this afternoon and go on with the business of the Senate. We have very important work to do. Yes, I was the one who held it up, but it didn't hold up any consideration of other things, I can tell you that. They immediately kept filing cloture, as they will to other measures. I don't feel badly about that, because it wasn't really a holdup. When they finally persuaded me they had the votes and they were going to really move with this thing, then I got into a movement disposition and persuaded our colleagues on this side of the aisle to limit their amendments, to give time agreements. Now we are ready to go, and here at the last minute, for no good reason at all, other than the bemusement of the distinguished Senator from Washington, he won't agree to vote when we get through with all amendments, which will be the Sessions and the Gregg amendments. Once they are disposed of, let's go right ahead to final passage. I yield the floor. Mr. BYRD addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished leader is manifestly correct. I was told, let's not even have a cloture vote, because looking at this measure, there could be three more cloture votes. And viscerally, not next Tuesday, I hope we do not vote until Tuesday 2001, the way I feel about it. But I entered public service to get some things done. You win some; you lose some. You have to go along. This is embarrassing to the body. Here we are, the Senate, talking about all the important things to get done and everything else of that kind. So we yield. We talk Senators into not offering their amendments. We finally get time agreements on all of the amendments on this side so no one has been in a proliferation or stretchout or extended debate. We were even forced to vote early last night to make sure we cleared the way to finish this afternoon. All we have is Senator Sessions' amendment and Senator Gregg's amendment, two amendments that could be disposed of in the next hour. In fact, the manager and our chairman, Senator McCain, has been yielding back his time and ready to vote. So it could be less than an hour. By 2:30 this afternoon, we could be finished with the bill. My question is, why do we want to wait and palaver and waste time and not go on to some of these important measures this afternoon? We are here and we are ready to go. I thank the minority leader and the whip for their particular comments, because we have been riding all the Senators pretty hard to limit the amendments and to have time agreements. Let's get moving. Senator McCain wanted to move the bill. We said so. I know the Republican screen all week long said they are going to finish this afternoon. I can't understand the change of pace now, to do nothing but talk to each other all afternoon. What a distressing situation this is, and no votes tomorrow and on Monday and just wait until Tuesday. I yield the floor. Mr. GORTON addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, let me thank and join in with the comments made by our distinguished leader, Senator Byrd from West Virginia. No one knows the history and appreciates the history of the Senate better than Senator Byrd and the compliment thereof. He reminded me, when he talked about the fatal crash that Senator Stevens was involved in, I had just traveled with Senator Stevens and his first wife, Annie. We were in Cairo, Egypt, out on the Nile to a conference with Anwar Sadat. We stopped in Madrid. I will never forget it. My wife and Annie took a quick trip, as we were being briefed. There was the purchase of a cut-glass bowl, and Annie Stevens had that in her lap, and that plane went head over heels. It broke Senator Stevens' arm, and it cost her life, but there was not a crack in the bowl. I can tell you from the early days when I first got up here in 1966 that I used to hold the hearings for Senator Bob Bartlett up there in Seattle with Dixie Lee Ray and John Lindberg and all on oceanography and what have you, and then go up to Alaska to Point Barrow. There is no closer friend in the Senate to me than Ted Stevens of Alaska. I am his admirer. I like his fights. Senator Byrd was more tactful about describing it, but I am telling you right now, when he gets worked up, get out of the way right now, because he is going to get it done one way or the other, and he is not yielding. He has that conviction of conscience that really guides all of us in our service up here. Over the many years, we visited, we traveled, we worked together, and we have been identified both on the Appropriations Committee and on the Commerce Space Science Transportation Committee. Senator Stevens long since could have been chairman of that Commerce Space Science Transportation Committee, but he elected to take over at the appropriations level. As a result, Alaska is well served. I can tell you that. It is filled up. They used to say about my backyard with Mendel Rivers that if he got one more facility, Charleston, SC, was going to sink below the sea. I think second in line for that kind of result would be Alaska as a result of the diligence for the local folks. I will never forget; we traveled up to Point Barrow. The Natives had erected a cross and a statue to Annie Stevens who was lost in that wreck. I want to emphasize that more than anything else--of course, his wonderful wife, Catherine, and his daughter, Lily--that he might make 12,000 votes, but he will miss votes, I can tell you, to be there with Lily. In fact, we had planned during the August break to take another survey trip, and he said: Oh no. Lily goes to Stanford then. We have to put it off until later. You have to admire that about an individual, as busy as we get and as wound up as we get with the important affairs of state, to never forget the personal responsibilities, and the love and that Ted has for his family, and, of course, for each of us in the Senate. He is most respectful. He works both sides of the aisle. As a result of that, he is most effective. I yield the floor.