Fritz Hollings

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, the distinguished Senator from Arizona, our chairman, talked about frivolous lawsuits and deep pockets and glitches. It strikes this Senator that what we have ongoing at the moment are computer glitches. Every now and again, we all run into it-- on my computer and others' around. Certainly it is an industry that has deep pockets, is worth billions of dollars, and some never have made a profit. But the market is valuable, with investments in the billions of dollars. So with glitches and deep pockets, you would think, by the description about frivolous lawsuits, that there would be lawyers all running around with frivolous lawsuits, saying, ``they got deep pockets,'' and there are glitches, and everybody would be suing everybody. Of course, that just proves the contention of the need for this bill. You go from the different styles. I was here when they went after the oil money. I was here when the oil went after the milk money. Now, in 2000, they are going after Silicon Valley and everybody is running out there to get their money and their blessing, and they never had any lawyers before, or any representatives. Now they have them all marching into Washington. But other than the politics, the business community is taking care of it. I refer, if the distinguished Presiding Officer pleases, to the March 1 issue of Business Week. On page 30, it says: Lloyd Davis is feeling squeezed. In 1998, his $2 million, 25-employee fertilizer-equipment business was buffeted by the harsh winds that swept the farm community. This year, his Golden Plains Agricultural Technologies, Inc. in Colby, Kansas, is getting slammed by Y2K. Davis needs $71,000 to make his computer systems bug-free by January 1. But he has been able to rustle up only the $39,000. His bank has denied him a loan because--ironically--he's not Y2K-ready. But Davis knows he must make the fixes or lose business. ``Our big customers aren't going to wait much longer,'' he frets. Golden Plains and thousands of other small businesses are getting a dire ultimatum from the big corporations they sell to: Get ready for Y2K, or get lost. Multinationals such as General Motors, McDonald's, Nike, and Deere are making the first quarter--or the second at the latest--the deadline for partners and vendors to prove they're bug-free. A recent survey by consultants at Gemini America says 69 percent of the 2,000 largest companies will stop doing business with companies that can't pass muster. The National Federation of Independent Business figures more than 1 million companies with 100 workers or fewer won't make the cut, and as many as half will lose big chunks of business or even fail. I am glad the market is taking care of them so we will not have to sue them. So the products we get will be sound. Reading further: Cutting thousands of companies out of the supply chain might strain supply lines and could even crimp output. But most CEOs figure it'll be cheaper in the long run to avoid bugs in the first place. But most CEOs figure it'll be cheaper in the long run to avoid bugs in the first place. Here they have 7\1/2\ months to get rid of the bugs. Here, with this particular article, they had 10 months to get rid of all the bugs. The technology has been on course for over 30 years. Everyone has been talking about it. We passed special legislation in the debate last year to set aside the antitrust provisions so they could work together. And, yet, some still are going to lag and not do business. This is why one of the leading computerization experts in the world just an hour ago in my office said, ``Senator, don't pass this bill.'' He said, ``I will use it for competition.'' Those who do not compete, who won't comply, and who won't get Y2K ready, ought to fall by the wayside, as this article and my friend were pointing out. I quote again from the article: Some small outfits are already losing key customers. In the past year, Prudential Insurance Co. has cut nine suppliers from its ``critical'' list of more than 3,000 core vendors, and it continues to look for weak links, says the Vice President for Information Systems at the company. At Citibank . . . cuts have already been made. Reading again: Big U.S. companies are not sugarcoating the problem. . . . ``if a vendor is not up to speed by April or May,'' Rabat says, ``it's serious crunch time.'' Here it is 6 months away. We are going to pass emergency legislation for glitches and deep pockets. We have had glitches and deep pockets all during the 1990s, and there is no trillion dollars' worth of lawsuits and frivolous lawsuits. That gets me to the point where I can tell you that the real lawyers who bring any cases don't have any time to bring frivolous lawsuits. They are not worth it. They can't get anything for it. And they don't get paid unless they win. And if they win, they have to prove to a 12- man jury and withstand all of the legal motions, delays, and everything else. So the real attorneys just do not bring frivolous lawsuits. Later, when we get into the full debate on the measure, I will have the documents to prove that from the Rand Corporation. Quoting further from the article: Through the Automotive Industry Action Group, GM and other car makers have set March 31 deadlines for vendors to become Y2K compliant. Madam President, that is just 5 days from now. In March, members of the Grocery Manufacturers of America will meet with their counterparts from the Food Marketing Institute to launch similar efforts. Other companies are sending a warning to laggards--and shifting business to the tech-savvy. ``Y2K can be a great opportunity to clean up and modernize the supply chain,'' says Roland S. Boreham, Jr., chairman of the board of Baldor Electric Co. in Fort Smith,

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent the time for the call of the quorum here be allocated equally to both sides.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Nebraska, Mr. Hagel, reminds me of a happier day. I say a happier day most sincerely in the sense that we had not become subject to all the consultants, all the pollsters to the point whereby today, in large measure, we more or less are marionettes to the consultants' hot-button items and issues and not the needs of the people. There was a tremendous respect on both sides of the aisle. I was elected in 1966. At that time, Senator Hruska was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senator Jim Eastland of Mississippi served as chairman. I remember the various measures that went before the Judiciary Committee for debate and action were those bills that were agreed upon by Senator Hruska and Senator Eastland. Senator Hruska was a profound lawyer, and I say that advisedly in the sense of a little quibble. Everybody will remember or the media friends will remember when we were trying to nominate a Supreme Court Justice, that maybe he was not a graduate of Harvard and, therefore, sort of what they would call ``mediocre talent.'' That nettled the Senator from Nebraska and he said, ``Well, there are a lot of people in the land and a lot of lawyers of mediocre talent and maybe they need representation on the Court.'' I remember him as a very erudite counsel who worked on these measures seriously and with purpose and was most respected. He has been a loss, I say to Senator Hagel. He has been missed over the many years because he held the line. We deliberated in a bipartisan fashion, and he contributed to that bipartisan leadership which is so lacking today. We ought to be working together. It would be a happier day. But, unfortunately, here we go again. The downtown crowd thinks they can embellish a computer glitch problem into a reform of the State tort laws with respect to joint and several liability, punitive damages, and everything else. As a result, it is a nonstarter. Like last week, the folks thought it would be good, since the President said, ``I'm going to save 62 percent for Social Security,'' they one-upmanshipped and said, ``We'll save 100 percent,'' knowing all along the 100 percent going to pay down the debt was coming from Social Security, increasing the debt on Social Security, thereby savaging, not saving, the fund. But so it goes. We do miss Senator Hruska. Mostly we miss his habits and his leadership and his balance in service. I think more than the balanced budget, what we need is balanced Senators. With that, I yield the floor for a balanced Senator, the distinguished Senator from Arizona. Mr. McCAIN addressed the Chair.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. That is right. While spending every dime of the trust fund, we reduce the public debt, so that what we have is the unified debt. I have heard the Senator and everybody else say, this time, leave it out of the unified deficit. That is how you bring out the unified deficit, and rather than the regular deficit, and the unified budget; isn't that correct?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed this budget realities chart.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, the distinguished Senator from Texas said we ought to have a good political debate, and he allows me to make a good political debate in that he made it political talking about Democrats and taxes and the wealthy. The truth of the matter is, that is how the economy got this way, outstandingly good, in that we taxed the wealthy back in 1993 on Social Security. It was that gentleman, the Senator from Texas, who said they are going to be hunting us down in the street and shooting us like dogs. He raises these strawmen. Another strawman--I am going to use his text; I wouldn't say these things if I couldn't back them up--he says, the trouble here is that we feel that a lockbox is a dangerous thing. That is exactly what he said back in July 1990. I made the motion on the Budget Committee and we voted 19 to 1 for a lockbox, bipartisan except for one. It was the distinguished Senator from Texas who said it was a dangerous thing. But we went ahead, passed it in the House and Senate, and President George Bush, on November 5, 1990, signed that lockbox into law. That lockbox is part of the amendment of the majority leader and the Senator from Michigan. Look on page 3. You see they reiterate 13301, but on page 10 they take it away. The distinguished Presiding Officer heard me tell about that insurance company slogan that ``Capital Life will surely pay, if the small print on the back don't take it away.'' My Republican colleague talked about how we always get into a wealth argument. They get into any and every effort to get rid of Social Security. They don't like it. In 1964, I remember, in the Goldwater campaign, they were going to abolish Social Security. In 1990, I finally got the Senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Heinz, to agree with me, and he changed around the mindset. I wish we had him here now and in the caucus to straighten out this nonsense, because what they are doing is exactly what they are not doing. They guarantee that every dime that is spent is going to be spent on either tax cuts or other spending rather than Social Security, when you pay down the debt. That is what they are saying. How is the debt caused? The debt is caused by spending too much. Spending too much on what? Any and every program. It could be defense. It could be Kosovo. It could be food stamps. It could be foreign aid. It could be law enforcement. But when you spend too much, you have a debt. We haven't spent too much on Social Security. That is one particular point on which I agree with the distinguished Senator from Texas. When he says, plundering, plundering--I use the word ``loot''--we can just say: Trust funds plundered in order to give that balanced budget, that unified budget, that unified debt--you don't hear that word--that is the same thing as paying down the public debt. So, yes, we plundered Social Security for $857 billion, and we plundered military retirement, civil retirement, unemployment, highway, airport, and even Medicare, and we have been violating our very doctrine, making it a criminal penalty to use trust funds, pension funds, to pay the company debt. That is the Pension Act of 1994. I know the distinguished Presiding Officer--he and I ended up talking about Denny McLain. I won't have to say that again. I can tell you now what we say in the private economy is, if you use the company pension fund to pay down the company debt, it is a felony. But it is good Government up here. But back to my poor Republican friends. Not only '64 and '90, but in '93 we got to the balanced budget amendment and we said, gentlemen, on the other side of the aisle, I will vote for you on a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution if you do not plunder Social Security. It is section 7, on page 5--I remember it well--where they said, no, we have to still plunder it. They could have gotten a group of us Senators on this side of the aisle, but they demanded to plunder Social Security. Then, Mr. President, right on up to the present date, read what they say. They say that the surplus shall not be used for non- Social Security spending or tax cuts, but then when they say it uses the Social Security surplus to reduce the debt, that is exactly what it does. The distinguished Senator from Texas says there is no plan here to save Social Security or make up for its debt. Why don't we say, use the Social Security surplus for only Social Security purposes, namely, pay down the $857 billion we owe it? They don't come and say that, Mr. President, no siree. They just demand, at every particular turn, that we get rid of it and now they want to privatize it. I refer, of course, to the particular language in section 202 of the budget resolution that they just brought in here as a group. This says that when the Committee on Ways and Means of the House and the Finance Committee in the Senate gets a conference report submitted that enhances retirement security-- that is nebulous; they think it is enhanced when they savage it, plunder it--through structural programmatic reform, the appropriate chairman of the Committee on the Budget--that means Mr. Kasich on the House side and Mr. Domenici on the Senate side--they can do anything: increase the appropriate allocations and aggregates of the budget authority; they can adjust the levels to determine compliance with pay- as-you-go, which in essence repeals the pay-as-you-go provision; and they can reduce the revenue aggregates. What does it mean? You have to call New Mexico and find out from the Senator from New Mexico what it means. That is what is going to happen. Monkeyshines here is going into the particular amendment. I can tell you here and now, Mr. President, that this is really a disaster. What we are doing is formalizing spending, spending all the Social Security surplus. At least the President of the United States says he wants to save 62 percent and he is going to spend 38 percent on something else. That is what the President said in his budget. We are going to save 62 percent, but we are going to spend 38 percent on something else. Do you know what this Republican amendment says? It says we want to make sure we spend 100 percent on something else because it is not for Social Security, it is for the debt. When they use that euphemism ``public debt,'' as I have explained many times, you have an American Express and a Visa card. The Senator from Texas has abandoned Dickie Flats; he has gone to Joe and Sarah Brown. He says when Joe and Sarah Brown sit around the kitchen table and pay their bills--but I can tell you what Joe and Sarah Brown never do: They don't take their Visa card and pay off their American Express. But that's what this amendment does. It says take your Social Security card, the surplus, and pay off the debt of any and every other program or tax cut--100 percent. They formalize what we tried to stop having been done in the law, when we passed the Balanced Budget Act of 1990. This amendment repeals that particular discipline, the pay-as-you-go program. It goes right on down there plundering. That is all it can be used for. It can't be used for Social Security. There, Mr. President, is the fiscal cancer. This Senator has been working on it for years. I ask unanimous consent to have printed this chart in the Record.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I am glad to yield to the Senator from North Dakota for a question.

Mr. HOLLINGS. This the same trickery. It is one grand farce. It is one grand fraud. So to the lockbox everyone is given the keys, whether you want a tax cut, or spending for a particular program on policy, or otherwise. They are given the key, except Social Security. That is the only crowd that can't spend it. You can spend it for any and everything but Social Security. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Yes. The distinguished Senator said, as I was coming in, that there was a box of IOUs. How do you think in the Social Security trust fund you got the IOUs?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, as you pay down the debt--that was the unified--that is how it was going down. That is where they got here this year to talk about a surplus for the first time. But we got together with the Concord Coalition and we got together with Barrons and several other responsible groups and they said there isn't any surplus. This Barrons headline says, ``Hey, Guys, There is No Budget Surplus.'' The only reason they can call it a surplus is because of what they recommend in this amendment, paying down the public debt. That is the unified budget. But in the regular overall budget, the debt continues to increase and increase, and the interest costs continue to increase and increase, and you can't give a tax cut without raising taxes. You can't just cut your revenues without increasing your debt. We have had all the spending cuts for 8 years of Reagan, 4 years of Bush, 6 years of Clinton. Nobody is recommending around here any cut in spending. The first order of business was $18 billion more for the military pay. The next order of business we are going to vote on is another $6 billion to $10 billion for Kosovo. Everybody is going to support that. So the spending goes up, up and away. We are down to bare bones. Yes, instead of abolishing the Department of Education, now they want to increase spending for education. So we can save, and the Presiding Officer can save, $10 billion or $20 billion; any individual can. But, collectively, as a Congress, we are not going to do it. What happens is that we need revenues in here, and we need to quit playing the game of paying down the public debt. Our problem is that the White House doesn't know how to run a war and our Republican Congress doesn't know how to run a peace. They come up here with this Mickey Mouse amendment, saying exactly the opposite of what it really provides. They say you can't use it or any spending. You have to use it on all spending but Social Security, because you are using Social Security money. You can't use it on tax cuts, you have to use it for tax cuts. Certainly, you can't use it for Social Security.

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. And I further understand that authorization of the project is contingent upon all applicable legal requirements being met. Is that correct?

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, I rise today to discuss the Water Resources Development Act that was passed by the Senate on Monday, April 19, 1999. I apologize for the tardy nature of my remarks, but I have been inundated with requests from my constituents to clarify the language regarding this project. I hope the Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will help clarify the intent of the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project authorization that appears in Section 101 of the 1999 Water Resources Development Act.

Mr. HOLLINGS. It is my understanding that this legislation does not exempt affected Federal, State, regional, and local entities from their independent legal duties to propose and evaluate navigation improvement projects in compliance with the requirements of applicable law; including the National Environmental Protection Act, the Water Resources Development Act of 1986, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act, and the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act, as well as the laws of South Carolina and Georgia.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I thank the Chairman for the opportunity to clarify these understandings.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I also understand that the concurrence of the federal agencies in the implementation plan and mitigation plan will not compromise or impair those legal requirements. Is that correct?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, with respect to the Y2K problem, it is very interesting to note, the problem has been prepared for technologically, by the very groups they say the bill is to protect, for 30 years. They have the technology. There is no hocus-pocus about that. I wish everyone would look back about 4 weeks ago and pull out of an edition of Business Week an extensive article to the effect that the market force is working. Large businesses, the GEs, the Ford Motors, the Xeroxes, the IBMs and everybody else, working with their suppliers down the line, have long since put them on notice. I do not have my file with me, but the drop dead date is the end of this particular month, April 1999, where you still have several more months to comply. But the market, knowing the technology is there, knowing of course you are going to be facing this, is trying to, like a Paul Revere, wake the town and tell the people. And they have been doing it. We did it last year, on a bipartisan basis, when we said: ``Wait a minute, if we cannot work these problems out, we will be slammed with antitrust.'' We got together quickly, the Senator from Connecticut and others, and on a bipartisan basis we passed that measure. Everything has been working fine. I spoke earlier this year--I do not want to mislead--I spoke with my friend, Mr. Andy Grove of Intel, who is very much concerned about proportionality. But other than that, we spent a good hour in my office talking about large computerization and everything else. That community knows. They are way ahead of lawyers and lawsuits, I can tell you that, as the business leaders. William Gates--Bill Gates, out at Davos, Switzerland, at the conference, said there was no problem. And this past week the New York Times wrote a summary article on the Y2K problem. Mind you me, this is the middle of April 1999, months ahead, of course, of January 2000. They said people are moving along and everything else. You see, it is a practical problem. There is a bunch of old equipment on hand. Every automobile dealer faces this every year because they are going to bring out another model. So they all know about bringing out new models and everything else like that. Of course the new model needed for 2000 is the Year 2000-compliant model. But what happens is that a side group has come in, upon this particular concern and interest, not at all interested in the Y2K. We could win this debate hands down on Y2K. But they are interested in distorting the tort liability laws of America. They have been about it and I have been with them for 20 years. There is a wonderful gentleman named Victor Schwartz with the National Association of Manufacturers, and he sends me a wonderful Christmas greeting, thanking me for the wonderful year he has had, because I keep his clients current as long as we can continue to defeat product liability. But now we have another gentleman who has come over to the Chamber of Commerce named Tom Donohue, and I know him well. I worked with him in the Truckers'. He is coordinating this conspiracy. There is a great problem. ``We have legitimate business folks in the computerization business who are going to front for us. We don't want to argue about taking away the rights of trial by jury that we have beat upon.'' They don't want to have to take on the Association of State Supreme Court Justices and everything else of that kind. ``We want to talk about Y2K, Y2K, Y2K, crisis, crisis, crisis.'' And they even act like there is one, 7 months ahead of time. My little State of South Carolina just reported they would be compliant in July of this particular year, 1999. If South Carolina can get ready, everybody and anybody can get ready by the year 2000, I can tell you that. But they come in under the auspices of a crisis, to try to change punitive damages, try to change trial by jury, try to change joint and several liability--they are trying to change it all. Anywhere they can get a foot in the door for this particular precedent by this particular Congress under the general phraseology ``tort reform,'' they think they are home free. And I am afraid they would be. The truth of the matter is, under the present legal system of the States', we are having the finest, most booming economy you have ever seen. The stock market has gone over 10,000, the interest rates are low, the unemployment rate is about the lowest it has ever been in 30 years, and right on down the list. So what you are finding out, right to the point, is that there is not a problem. Business is doing well. In fact, the analysis done in this particular debate over 20 years has found it has not been greedy trial lawyers bringing fanciful suits with no substance whatsoever, just harassing. Mr. President, the good trial lawyer has no time for that nonsense. He does not get paid until he wins. He has to prevail. He has to come to court, he has to prove his case by the greater preponderance of evidence. He has to get not just 5 or 6 votes, he has to get all 12 votes. Then he has to go through the obstacle course of an appeal to the Supreme Court. Why? Because corporate America continues to get paid as long as the clock runs. It is a tragic thing that has been occurring in the system of jurisprudence in America, because I practiced law for 20 years and I practiced representing businesses, incorporated and otherwise, but predominantly on the trial side with poor clients. I did not get a recovery unless the client got a recovery. I was against continuances, against motions, against more depositions, against more discoveries. You see that mahogany-wall, oriental-rug crowd down here. There are 60,000 registered to practice in the District of Columbia trying to fix your vote and my vote, just fixing juries. They will never get to the courtroom. They sit around and tell the clients: Come on, computer industry, we can change the tort system so we can take away the rights of the very group, Mr. President, that it is supposed to protect--mainly small business. They have the National Federation of Independent Businesses. That is the small business group that the law now protects. Instead, under the bill as proposed, a small business owner will have to wait 90 days before he or she could bring proceedings in court to recover damages. They know at the very beginning what is contracted for and what is wrong, but this requirement is going to delay them, increasing the time and costs of the suit. Then you have to prove various other measures by one of the highest standards of proof, almost like in a civil case. In cases where a party generally is required to prove by a preponderance, they seek to have the standard to be clear and convincing. I say that advisedly because with this particular system, as it has worked out over the years--come to South Carolina. We had tort reform, but I have, they say, the competitive businesses. I am bringing in the Hondas, the BMWs, as well as the expansion of the GEs and other industries from all over the United States and the world coming into South Carolina where we have a civil statewide tort system. Actually, these contracts are under the Uniform Commercial Code and ought to be tried on a contract basis. But, no, they do not want to even talk about the defect in the entire measure. The measure is not needed. The measure is misguided. The measure is an adulteration of the system, and bringing it to the Federal level, trying to tell the States--and that is what I hear from the other side of the aisle, that the people back home know best, they keep quoting Jefferson to me, less Government, let the States operate and everything else of that kind. They do that until they get something for big business. Now they want to come in and make sure they can have that clock run, that they can make a fortune, and the little man cannot even afford to bring his particular action. I have every objection in the world to this measure. I do not mind compromising. I have always dealt with that particular approach for the almost 50 years now that I have been in public service. But I can tell you what this is. This is not Y2K. They have everybody running all around. Look at the morning Washington Post and you will see the different people. It is like: ``Sooey, pig, you come, we got them, we're going to get you to do this, get them to do that,'' and take the person who has made the contract--and right now they can look at their contract and see what is what in April 1999, months ahead of January 1. They know whether they have the bad model or the right contract, and they know what is going to be required. This really allows an industry to offload all the old stuff and then come in with an adaptation next year that is going to cost over and above the particular computer. It is bad business. It really distorts the jury system and the tried- and-true system of American jurisprudence. That is why I had to object, because I have been busy on this other farce, this so-called lockbox that allows everybody to have the key but the poor Social Security crowd that is bringing about the surplus. There is not any question about that farce that is going on. They are just trying to make for a TV short in next year's campaign. We are going to make TV spots and show the inaccuracy of it. That is exactly what we have been doing, paying down public debt with Social Security money, thereby running up, up, up and away the Social Security debt. When you pay down someone else's debt with your money, you incur an indebtedness increase in your own program, namely Social Security. There we are. They are trying their best to ram it through on Y2K, and they are all going around oozing and goozing how reasonable we are and we are trying to work this out. It ought to be killed dead in its tracks. Anybody who is looking out for the individual rights of the small businessman, the little doctor, the little law firm--any little business person who does not keep a lawyer on retainer and they have an instrumentality, namely a computer, that they say is ready to comply, and then they find out it does not comply, that is a breach of contract under the Uniform Contract Code. They can bring that action. Mr. President, unless there is a fraudulent breach, it does not come under tort law, it comes under the contract law. Incidentally, it is businesses suing businesses. That is the big logjam. Any study, any research done with respect to the actual increase in the volume of lawsuits in America will find businesses suing businesses. I am exhibit 1 on this particular issue, for the main and simple reason, we worked for 4 years to get through the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Once we got it through, rather than businesses doing what they said, namely competing, they all started with their lawyers: It was unconstitutional, take it up to this court--they have all been in court. Why? The ratepayers are paying for the lawyers. It does not cost them any money, and they are going around buying up each other, combining rather than competing. They have a legal game going, which is in some measure the same thing they had going with AT&T that caused Judge Greene to break it up. It seems to me that we are going to have to break it up again. That is what we are looking at now with the FCC: getting a drop-dead date for them to comply with the law that they wrote. They do not want to comply. They want to combine. They want to use their monopolistic powers with their lawyers in business. But it is not the poor little injured party in court with a jury trial that is at issue, generally speaking, with respect to Y2K. It is the downtown crowd that is scaring up clients and scaring up fees and scaring up activity against the States. The States have their own laws. The State of Illinois is well regarded as a place of high jurisprudence, and they do not need the Federal Government coming in and telling them how to protect the little man. Here, under the auspices of protecting the little man, we are going to take away his rights and drag him out, as if he had a lawyer waiting. It is to discourage the little man's day in court. That is why we will be watching it very closely. I don't know that this one will be worked out. In all reality, I think we can get the votes--not necessarily on the matter of proceeding. We do not mind proceeding, we are just trying to get the time. We can get the votes on the cloture to kill this measure. If the computer industry is really serious about it, there may be some compromise, but for this particular Senator, I have no plans at all of compromising on the fundamental constitutional rights of a trial by jury and what the States have developed over many, many years, which is the finest business environment that exists in the world today. Nothing is hurting them. I do not have any of these foreign industries coming in and saying, ``But, Senator, we're worried about product liability, we are worried about joint and several, we are worried about trial by jury, we are worried about all these other punitive damages.'' You do not hear that until you can get politicians running for national office, and then they put it in the polls. Under ``Henry V,'' Shakespeare said, ``Kill all the lawyers.'' Of course, it was the biggest compliment. The only way that individual rights and freedom could not be sustained is to kill off the crowd that was going to protect individual rights and freedom. So it really was the greatest of all compliments. It was not that they were against lawyers, but they knew how to start anarchy. So that is what they told Dick the Butcher when they shouted, ``Kill all the lawyers.'' That is what you have on Monday when we get to the regular debate. We will see which lawyer crowd we are going to kill off. I yield the floor.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I understand. That is why we are calling around now trying to work it out with the leader. He just hasn't gotten it worked out yet.

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object to the mandatory waiver of the quorum call.

Mr. HOLLINGS. No. That is all.

Mr. HOLLINGS. We are trying to work out the matter of the quorum call that is required with, of course, the vote on Monday. I would have to object to dispensing with that call for a quorum on Monday, and maybe we can change it by the end of the afternoon. I am trying to check around right now. The Senator from Arizona doesn't mind, does he?

Mr. HOLLINGS

Mr. HOLLINGS. I object.