Fraudulent Joinder Prevention Act of 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Chairman, I return to the floor today for the second time in as many months to speak against another crony- capitalist, Republican-led bill to benefit big business.

H.R. 3624, the Fraudulent Joinder Protection Act, as it is so called, is a solution in search of a problem.

Current Federal law already provides Federal courts with ample tools to address possible forum shopping. This crony-capitalist legislation would add needless complications for civil litigants seeking redress for violent claims in the State courts.

Two, it further stretches the already limited resources Federal courts are experiencing due to Republican-passed, budget-cutting sequestration measures.

Currently America is burdened with a Republican Party-caused judicial vacancy crisis in this Nation's Federal courts, where there are over 81 Federal court judicial vacancies around the country, including the one left vacant by the passing of Justice Scalia.

Republicans--who control the Senate and who, in the press conferences and meetings they have held this week, have fully exposed their plot to add to this judicial crisis--are refusing to fill that vacancy on the country's highest Court, and they have an ulterior purpose for doing so.

That purpose, ladies and gentlemen, is because they know that justice delayed is justice denied. They want to gum up the works of the Federal courts by defunding the Federal courts while at the same time bogging them down with State court matters that should be left to the States, and then what it results in is crony capitalists being able to avoid being held accountable in the State or Federal courts.

So this Congress should not further burden the Federal courts, which are already strapped for time and resources, when State courts are more suited and capable of hearing State--not Federal, but State--law claims as State courts have been empowered to do since this country was formed.

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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. The 10th Amendment in this country means something. It means something to Republicans, and it means something to Democrats. Sometimes we disagree on what it means and what impacts it should have.

But there is no doubt that the Federal court system has its body of law and the citizens should be able to bring their claim into their State courts, as they have been doing since this country's foundation.

They use the 10th Amendment when it is convenient to them, and then they violate it when it is not convenient. That is not the way that conscientious Republicans should operate. I challenge them to stop this encroachment on states' rights.

This legislation presumes that Federal courts are not currently preventing forum shopping in civil suits, but there is absolutely no credible evidence that Federal courts are failing to do their duty.

I ask my colleagues to oppose this crony-capitalist legislation.

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