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Speaker 1: Republicans have been trying to kill class actions and push

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Speaker 1: tort reform bills for years. It's been a losing battle

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Speaker 1: since the Class Action Fairness Act of two thousand five,

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Speaker 1: co authored by GOP Congressman Rob Goodlat. Now good Lat,

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Speaker 1: chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has introduced the broadest

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Speaker 1: of a series of bills designed to discourage class actions

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Speaker 1: and make it harder to sue businesses joining us as

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Speaker 1: Paul Barrett of Bloomberg business Week, who has written about

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Speaker 1: this in an article entitled will the GOP finally crushed

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Speaker 1: class actions? Paul? How will these bills make it harder

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Speaker 1: to bring class actions? Chairman good Lat's bill, which is

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Speaker 1: the one that directly addresses class actions, has a whole

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Speaker 1: series of provisions, no one of which would would spell

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Speaker 1: the end of class actions, but in combination, they would

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Speaker 1: make it much more difficult for plaintiffs lawyers to bring

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Speaker 1: these cases. For example, uh, there's a provision in the

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Speaker 1: bill that requires that a legal fees for the plaintiff's

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Speaker 1: lawyer be a percentage of only of the money that

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Speaker 1: has actually gone to the alleged victims in the case,

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Speaker 1: so that if the remedies sought by the class action

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Speaker 1: was just a change in corporate behavior. That might mean

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Speaker 1: that the that the plaintiffs lawyers would not be entitled

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Speaker 1: to any damages, and that in turn, obviously would be

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Speaker 1: a huge deterrent to the bringing of those kinds of lawsuits. Well,

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Speaker 1: there's also there are also provisions to prevent UM firms

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Speaker 1: from doing multiple representations and multiple suits of the same plaintiffs.

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Speaker 1: What's that all about. Yeah, Well, actually, that provision which

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Speaker 1: we wrote about in our article, which was in the

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Speaker 1: bill as of late Wednesday, was was taken out of

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Speaker 1: the bill at the very very last second because it

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Speaker 1: was attracting a lot of attention, So that there was

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Speaker 1: a provision originally in the bill that basically would have

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Speaker 1: made it very difficult for the experienced securities class action

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Speaker 1: law firms that bring UH cases of that UH securities

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Speaker 1: fraud cases and frequently represent the same institutional investors over

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Speaker 1: and over. It would have made it very difficult for

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Speaker 1: them to do business. But good lad actually had the

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Speaker 1: bill amended, it literally on the floor at the last minute,

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Speaker 1: and that provision is now out. So, Paul, what are

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Speaker 1: the chances that this will pass not just the House

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Speaker 1: but the Senate. Well, these bills are passing the House,

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Speaker 1: and that's as expected. They face a much tougher set

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Speaker 1: of obstacles in the Senate, where the Republicans have only

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Speaker 1: a fifty two to forty eight advantage, which means that

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Speaker 1: under Senate rules, to avoid a filibuster, they need to

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Speaker 1: find eight Democrats to go along with them. Now, they

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Speaker 1: have a strategy for that. They're going to target UH,

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Speaker 1: Democrats from red states who are up for re election

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Speaker 1: in eighteen and hope that they can peel away a

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Speaker 1: few of those votes. Well, that's an interesting strategy though, Paul,

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Speaker 1: because you know, stopping people playeffs from from suing big corporations.

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Speaker 1: How does that play out in terms of trying to

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Speaker 1: get say, you know, white, middle class Trump voters in

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Speaker 1: red states to vote against Democrats. Well, I think it

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Speaker 1: is potentially challenging, and it's not obvious how that issue plays.

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Speaker 1: And that's one of the reasons why this kind of

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Speaker 1: legislation generally, UM is very difficult for business interests to

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Speaker 1: pass on the federal level because what your constituency UH

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Speaker 1: is can be a little bit ambiguous. Businesses clearly want

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Speaker 1: restrictions on civil litigation, but whether the little guy wants

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Speaker 1: those restrictions is is far more ambiguous when you hear

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Speaker 1: about class actions, Paul. Many people think about enormous fees

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Speaker 1: for the plaintiff's lawyers involved. But class actions have also

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Speaker 1: led to changes in industry practices. And recently there was

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Speaker 1: the Trump University class action on behalf of six thousand students.

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Speaker 1: So there are some class actions that do good as well. Um,

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Speaker 1: if this does pass, will it be something that Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump would sign, Well, certainly Republicans are speculating, um that

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Speaker 1: the President Trump would sign such legislation. With President Obama

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Speaker 1: in the White House, there was an almost certain veto

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Speaker 1: for anything along these lines, um. But President Trump presents

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Speaker 1: an ambiguous figure himself. He has been the target of

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Speaker 1: of all kinds of civil litigation, as you mentioned, um,

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Speaker 1: but he also has been a very aggressive plaintiff in

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Speaker 1: a number of occasions, uh, during his business career. So

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Speaker 1: he's both someone who gets who got sued a lot,

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Speaker 1: and who himself filed a lot of lawsuits. So just quickly, Paul,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're reporting on this, and you've

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Speaker 1: given us a sort of handicapping of it, but does

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Speaker 1: it really look like this is the year this could

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Speaker 1: go through the Senator? Is it going to be just

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Speaker 1: too big a challenge for the Republicans? No, I think

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Speaker 1: it's it's plausible. I think business interests that are enthusiastic

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Speaker 1: about this are correctly, uh, calculating that this might be

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Speaker 1: the year to actually push through a substantial amount of legislation. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's a great article with a lot of information packed

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Speaker 1: in it. That's Paul Barrett of Boomberg business Week, and

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Speaker 1: the article is entitled will the GOP finally crushed class actions?

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Bloomberg Law? Thanks so much for being here, Paul.

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Speaker 1: Coming up on Bloomberg Law, we'll look at the Republican

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Speaker 1: healthcare bill. What will it really mean? What are its

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Speaker 1: chances of passing. We'll be talking to Harry Nelson. He's

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Speaker 1: a partner at Nelson Harridman and he's the author of

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Speaker 1: the book Obamacare to Trump Care, Why You Should Care