[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 184 (Wednesday, November 30, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6880-S6885]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                     Remembering A. Donald McEachin

  Mr. KAINE. Madam President, I am trying to make Senate history as the 
first Senator to give a speech with a visual aid that is a picture of a 
T-shirt. So we will see if the Senate Historian will back me up on 
this.
  This is a T-shirt that is 21 years old, and it is a Warner-Kaine-
McEachin T-shirt. I had moved recently from my house of 30 years into a 
condo, and there were boxes of stuff that still months later I am 
trying to unpack. Over the weekend, I got into one of these boxes, with 
a little free time at the end of Thanksgiving weekend. The goal was to 
go through it and throw away as much as I could.
  I was going through these T-shirts, and I came across this one. This 
is a T-shirt from a 2001 campaign in Virginia where three longtime 
friends--Mark Warner, Tim Kaine, and Donald McEachin--shared a ticket 
running for Virginia Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and attorney 
general.
  When I came across the T-shirt, the first thing I noticed is that I 
am a little bigger than I was 21 years ago, and it doesn't really fit, 
and so I put it in the Goodwill pile. But then, as I got through the 
whole box and I was about to make that decision, I thought, you know, I 
think I should pull this one out of the Goodwill pile and save it, and 
I did. I washed it, and I put it in the drawer.
  Obviously, Mark and I are here on the floor today because our dear 
friend Donald McEachin, 61 years old, Member of Congress, from 
Virginia--my congressman, the Fourth Congressional District--we got the 
surprising news last night, and I heard about it first from Mark, that 
Donald had passed away in his sleep at home in Richmond and had been 
found by his wife Collette, who is also a very dear friend. So Mark and 
I wanted to come to the floor today and just talk a little bit about 
Donald. I will talk for a bit and then ask Mark to offer his 
reflections.
  I met Donald when I was 26 years old and he was 24. I met Mark 4 
years before. So these are three people who have known each other now 
for basically 40 years. I had moved to Richmond, where I only knew one 
person in Virginia--my soon-to-be wife. I had taken a job at a law 
firm, and I was given the last office down the hall.
  A few months after I joined the firm in September of 1984, a very 
personable guy came in and said, ``Who is in my office?'' And it was 
Donald McEachin. Donald had worked at the firm as a summer associate 
the summer before and was now at the University of Virginia Law School 
and came to find me occupying the place where he had worked the 
previous summer. His challenge to me began a wonderful friendship.
  Donald soon graduated from the University of Virginia and came to 
Richmond, the city of his birth and upbringing, to practice law at a 
different firm. We had cases together. Soon after he came, he became 
engaged to an attorney, who is now the Commonwealth's attorney, the 
chief prosecutor in Richmond, Collette Wallace--Collette Wallace 
McEachin. They had a big wedding party in Richmond at the Marriott 
Hotel, which my wife Anne and I were proud to be invited to. And we 
just began this wonderful friendship with these two couples.
  Donald was one of the most successful trial attorneys in Richmond. He 
started a firm after he had practiced with a larger firm. He and two 
great twin brothers, Donald and Earl Gee, started a wonderful law firm. 
He won history-making verdicts in Virginia as a plaintiff's personal 
injury lawyer, but he was always passionate about public service. He 
had gone to American University and had been president of the student 
body there. Then when he went back to Virginia to go to UVA Law School, 
he always had in his mind that he wanted to do something in the public 
service realm.
  So about the time I was running for city council in Richmond in 1994, 
Donald ran and successfully became a member of the Virginia General 
Assembly in the House of Delegates. He

[[Page S6881]]

served there with distinction, especially in leadership roles on the 
Courts of Justice Committee, where he played a key role in the 
formation of the Virginia judiciary and Virginia criminal and civil 
procedure, until he, a legislator; Mark Warner, a prominent 
philanthropist and Virginia entrepreneur; and Tim Kaine, at that time 
the mayor of the city of Richmond, landed on a ticket together in 2001. 
We ran statewide an amazing case.
  At that time in Virginia, getting elected as a Democrat was like 
being Harry Houdini in trying to work your way out of an impossible 
escape situation. It was very, very difficult.
  Mark really set tremendous history by winning the first big statewide 
race in a number of years as a Democrat, and I had to win my own race. 
I wasn't on the ticket with Mark, but his strong performance at the top 
helped me win the Lieutenant Governor's race. Donald McEachin did not 
win his race. He was not elected to attorney general. No shame in that. 
We all know this. We are in a line of work where wins are common and 
losses are common. Mark doesn't like to be reminded that he lost a race 
for the U.S. Senate in 1996, although I have often heard him say with 
magnanimity that in that race, the right Warner won. I have not yet had 
such magnanimity about the race I lost in 2016, but I will let that 
pass.

  The wonderful thing about Donald McEachin when he lost that race for 
attorney general was that it meant that he was now not in the house of 
delegates. He went back to practicing law, representing people who 
often had no one else to represent them. Then a few years later, he 
successfully ran and became a member of the Virginia Senate and started 
chapter two in his political life.
  He was a fantastic member of the senate because of the fact that he 
already had experience in the house of delegates. He achieved 
leadership quickly and was really looked up to as one of the lions of 
the Virginia Senate.
  Here is something about Donald that is pretty amazing, and then I 
will quickly hand it over to Mark. He had already been successful in 
politics in the house of delegates and now in the Virginia Senate. He 
had been tremendously successful as a lawyer for people who really 
needed representation. He had built a wonderful marriage with Colette, 
and he was an understanding and caring father to three beautiful 
children. But Donald decided he needed something more in his life, even 
with all of that. So when he was in his forties, he decided to go to 
Virginia Union, which is a historically Black college in Virginia that 
was founded in the aftermath of the Civil War to educate newly freed 
slaves. He decided to go back to college in his forties and get a 
divinity degree, and he did, for nights and weekends for years, 
studying so he could get a theology degree because he wanted to ground 
his public service in something more than campaigns and polls. He 
wanted to really ground it deeply in values. That is the kind of person 
Donald McEachin was.
  And 2016 wasn't a great year for me being on a national ticket and 
losing, but there was one really great thing that happened in 2016. 
Donald McEachin decided to leave the State senate and run for Congress 
in the Fourth District that had been newly reconfigured following a 
voting rights lawsuit in Virginia. Mark and I were so happy when he got 
into that race, and we worked very, very hard to help him succeed. On 
election night 2016, we got the band back together.
  And with that, I want to yield to my colleague from Virginia, Senator 
Warner.
  Mr. WARNER. Thank you, Senator Kaine, the Presiding Officer, and my 
friend from Illinois.
  Tim and I have been friends for 42 years. We met in law school. It 
has become a standard line: We didn't meet in the library. But this has 
been a friendship that lasted 42 years.
  Donald and Tim go back to the mid-1980s. I first met Donald McEachin 
in 1989. We went through a series of fluky activities, which I won't 
bore the floor with. I ended up becoming campaign manager for Doug 
Wilder's then-extraordinary, historic run for Governor. He was the 
first African American running for Governor in our country's history 
and was elected in his own right.
  I met this young man, Donald McEachin. You couldn't help but know 
him. Donald was in a law firm at that point, McEachin & Gee, that had 
everything--the billboards, the TV commercials. And we started a 
friendship, similar to what Tim talked about, with Donald.
  My daughter's birthday was last week, my 33-year-old daughter. She 
remembers that decade, in the 1990s and the early 2000s, when we were 
campaigning together. Tim's family, our family, and Donald and 
Colette's family kind of--whether they liked it or not, all of these 
kids were thrown together because we were all engaged in politics. She 
remembered Donald--and Tim mentioned this in his comments right after 
the election or right after his passing 2 nights ago--as a gentle 
giant. Donald was a big guy, 6 feet 5 inches, and kind of looked like a 
football player. Don't mistake his gentleness for lack of passion and 
commitment. He was an extraordinarily caring, listening, compassionate 
human being.
  I will take a moment and just talk about the fact that, in my 
campaign in 2001, we didn't always agree on things. He wasn't totally 
keen on things I was trying to do to solicit hunters and other folks, 
but we spent a lot of time campaigning in rural Virginia, in the south 
side of Virginia, southwest Virginia, in parts of Appalachia, 
Shenandoah Valley. And Donald had been born abroad, but had grown up in 
urban areas around Richmond.
  Taking a guy with his presence--but also, frankly, somebody who had 
been a leader from Richmond, an African American, into a lot of these 
rural communities--he had an amazing ability to just immediately relate 
to people.
  He would have been a great, great attorney general, but I want to 
echo what Tim said and that is, he didn't take the defeats and say: I 
will take my marbles and go away.
  No, he said: I still have public service in me.
  He went back and, as Senator Kaine indicated, played an incredibly 
important role in the Virginia State Senate. Again, Democrats were 
trying to reclaim the majority. He was a leader, and he came to the 
Congress.
  Tim and I were together for a moment of silence on the floor of the 
House last night at about 7:30 and a number of Members, Democrats and 
Republicans alike, came up and said: Oh, my gosh, this was such a loss.
  Donald was such an incredible figure. One of the things--and there 
were so many issues he cared about. I will briefly mention two and then 
talk a bit more about the last couple of years with Donald and turn it 
back over to Tim.
  Donald had always been an environmentalist. He was one of the first 
people, candidly, that I knew that came on a regular basis, linking 
environmentalism and social justice, pointing out--not just in the last 
30 years or 40 years, but the last 60 years, 70 years in the country--
that whenever you had a project, whenever you had a runoff, whenever 
bad water or bad air, those circumstances were way disproportionate to 
places in poorer communities. He was passionate about the linkage 
between the need for us to clean up our planet but also to recognize 
that the disadvantages that came with pollution often fell too much on 
poorer communities.

  In Virginia, as I think many of my colleagues will know, we have had 
a troubled history with race, and, unfortunately, when you tell 
Virginia's history--the good, the bad, the ugly--part of it was pretty 
ugly. Tim had not only come to Virginia because of his brilliant wife 
Anne Holton but to be that voice for righting some of these wrongs.
  All three of us are adopted Virginians. Virginia's history in terms 
of resistance to integration and massive resistance is still a plight. 
If you look at any State in the country where there was a 
disproportionate number of statues and memorials to Confederate 
figures, Virginia, far and away, topped the list. There is a lot of 
talk, and probably many people who are listening recall some of the 
controversy around some of the Civil War Confederate statues in the 
city of Richmond. But what Donald took on was the question of Fort Lee, 
the heart of his district, a terribly important training facility.

[[Page S6882]]

  He made sure that, as Fort Lee went through its renaming process, he 
had it renamed for the highest ranking African-American service person 
he knew of who served at Fort Lee. It could have been something where 
he said: Who needs that fight? Donald McEachin took on that fight and 
did it in the right way--social justice and environmentalism. Who needs 
that? Talk about Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill time and again. 
Making that connection and continuing to advocate for it, that is the 
kind of guy Donald McEachin was.
  The last part was the last couple of years. Donald, in about 2015, 
2014, got hit with cancer. Donald--this big, big man--we literally saw 
him, at least physically, shrink before our eyes. He lost 60, 70, 80 
pounds. He was in for surgery after surgery. So many times I would see 
him, and, partially, it was his character and, partially, I think, it 
was his faith. I remember talking to him about going back to Virginia 
to get that divinity degree.
  He never complained. Whenever you asked, ``How are you doing?''--I am 
getting better. I am getting better. I am getting stronger.
  Lord knows there were times in the last couple of years where you 
could--you might not see it, but you could--see the pain in his face. 
He would almost shuffle until he would get behind the podium. Then that 
spirit and voice and that call for justice would come back.
  We all knew he had been sick, but I remember--I know Tim was with him 
on election night and we had a number of communications afterward. He 
was already planning his agenda, not only for the next Congress but how 
we could get more engaged with the general assembly and doing the right 
thing in Virginia politics.
  The other night, when I got the call, the first person I called was 
Tim. We think about the band, when we were together in 2001. Hopefully, 
we took the progress of Virginia a little bit more forward, and Donald 
continued that progress in the State senate and in the House of 
Representatives.
  Virginia lost a great leader. Our country lost a leader in the House.
  I can't speak for Tim--but I think I can. Tim and I lost a great 
friend. We are here today to honor his service, to recommit ourselves 
to that kind of service, to continue to acknowledge Colette and their 
three children. We will be there for them as they go through this grief 
process. But we wanted to take a moment of the Senate's time and share 
with you some of our reminiscences about our friend Donald McEachin.
  I turn it back.
  Mr. KAINE. I want to thank Senator Warner for his very great 
comments. I am getting emotional hearing him recount these stories.
  Mark, I remember once--you were talking about how Donald would never 
complain. He literally changed overnight, seemingly, in his physical 
appearance because he lost so much weight. His hair turned gray, and he 
started to stoop and walk with more of a shuffle. I remember once 
walking through the halls here between the House and the Senate and 
someone was ahead of me.
  Who is that old guy? Who is that old guy?
  It was not until I caught up with him--because we had been doing so 
much by Zoom that sometimes we didn't see each other physically for a 
couple of months. When I caught up with him, I realized it was Donald. 
As Mark said, if you asked Donald: How are you doing? Hey friend, it 
looks like things are tough right now.
  I am getting better. I am on the mend.
  Donald didn't decide to keep things private. He just didn't think 
about himself. Donald was not a guy who thought about himself.
  Somebody first told me a great definition of humility is not to think 
less of yourself; it is to think of yourself less. Donald was a person 
who really exemplified that.

  When we were on the House floor last night, the Virginia delegation 
gathered to do a moment of silence for Donald, and the deans of each 
side of our delegation, Congressman Scott, the Democrat, and 
Congressman Wittman, the Republican, each gave tributes to Donald. 
There was a white rose display sitting on Donald's chair, which is a 
tradition in both bodies when someone dies when they are in office.
  I happened to visit with G.K. Butterfield, the retiring Congressman 
who sat next to Donald, and G.K. told me that so often, when they were 
on the House floor, Donald would be doubled over because he would be in 
so much pain. But he would never complain. He would never complain.
  We have lost a great friend.
  I have said about Donald that he will have a successor, but he won't 
have a replacement.
  It is just an honor to come and share with all of you the 
recollections about our friend, a great Virginia public servant, a 
history maker.
  I will just say that we got the band back together in 2016, and I 
look for the day when we will get the band back together again.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Hickenlooper). The Senator from Alaska.


                   Unanimous Consent Request--S. 5130

  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a bill that I 
want to try to pass right here on the Senate floor, that I believe 
every single Senator should vote for.
  If you are an American and you are watching this, if you are a marine 
and you are watching this, you are going to be outraged. You are going 
to be outraged. I am outraged.
  But we can fix this problem. You are seeing it on TV every damn day. 
And here is what it is: U.S. marines and their families are being 
preyed upon by unscrupulous trial lawyers. Yes, it is amazing that it 
is happening right now.
  I have a bill that is called the Protect Camp Lejeune Victims 
Ensnared By Trial-lawyer's Scams Act, or the VETS Act for short. And 
here is what is the background. And, again, I really hope no one is 
going to come down and object to this because, boy, you would have a 
lot of explaining to do to the American people and to the U.S. marines.
  But what has happened, every American has seen it, right? You can't 
turn on TV anymore--CNN, FOX News, you name it--there is a trial lawyer 
ad a minute. Here are some of them: Camp Lejeune marines, Camp Lejeune 
marine families, have you been wronged?
  Now, there was a provision in the PACT Act that we all passed here 
that said marines exposed to water contamination at Marine Corps base 
Camp Lejeune needed to get compensated. We all supported--I supported 
that, OK, but then something happened. The trial lawyers of America 
kicked in, and they are grabbing all the money. And the sick marines 
and their families aren't getting any.
  Now, look at these ads, we had a hearing on this in the Veterans 
Affairs' Committee 2 weeks ago. I asked questions about this. The VA is 
getting phone calls. I am going to talk a little bit about the VFW and 
the American Legion which support my bill I want passed right now. I 
asked the VA representative, how much of this is happening, and they 
estimated already a billion dollars in ads.
  Look at them. Every American has seen them. A billion dollars. Do you 
think the trial lawyers are spending a billion out of the kindness of 
their hearts? out of wanting to help the U.S. marines? No. I don't 
think so--a billion dollars already spent.
  Now, look, I don't blame the marines who dial these 1-800 numbers 
that they see on the screen. Imagine if you are listening: Hey, I am a 
marine. I am sick. I am going to call these guys.
  But I do blame the trial lawyers, and I blame a lot of my colleagues 
here who are using sick marines to get rich. That is what my bill is 
going to change.
  Like I said, it is called the veterans act--the VETS Act, OK. Let me 
unpack this a little bit. Like I said, when the PACT Act passed, it had 
this legislation to compensate veterans who were sickened by toxins 
from water at Camp Lejeune, very innovative, and to be clear, again, we 
need to take care of these marines and their families and others at 
Camp Lejeune.
  The problem, however, is when the PACT Act was passed, my colleagues 
on the other side of the aisle, unfortunately after agreeing to 
amendments, decided it was time to block all amendments. So we had no 
ability to amend the act. We would have made it much better.

[[Page S6883]]

  But one area where we really wanted to amend the act was that this 
scam by trial lawyers was predictable. Not only was it predictable, the 
Biden administration's Justice Department predicted it. They warned us, 
without a cap on contingency fees, that predatory law firms would grab 
the lion's share of the judgments going to sick marines and their 
family members.
  Again, the lawyers get billions; the marines, who are sick, get 
crumbs. The Biden administration said: Hey, you guys have to be aware. 
So what did we do? Senator Inhofe brought an amendment saying let's put 
a cap. The Biden administration said a 10-percent cap on contingency 
fees. Sounds fair.
  The rumors we are hearing already is that unscrupulous trial lawyers 
are charging 50 and 60 percent contingency fees for sick marines. The 
Biden administration said cap it at 10 percent. We put forward an 
amendment that was going to cap it at 10 percent. My colleagues on the 
other side of the aisle blocked it. I wonder what is going on there. We 
know they love to enrich trial lawyers.
  The President of the United States' Justice Department asked us to 
address this before it would become a problem. But my colleagues chose 
trial lawyers over sick marines.
  As a result, some marines have already lost money because of scams. 
Some of these law firms are promising big paydays. Of course, they are 
asking for money upfront, much of which they will likely use. Others 
are being used without getting any money. A recent media story 
highlighted a marine in Kentucky whose face was used in an ad claiming 
he received a $35,000 settlement. In fact, he told a reporter he got 35 
cents. How is that for justice? I hope Jon Stewart is listening, by the 
way. Maybe he can help us on this one.
  The VA, local governments, organizations, veterans groups are 
frantically trying to warn veterans about these scams that I just 
showed you, but there isn't much they can do when they see this barrage 
of a billion dollars of advertising. Right now it is probably up to--
heck, I asked this 3 weeks ago. It is probably up to 1.5 billion. So 
they don't know.
  Here is what the American Legion said at a recent American Legion 
meeting:

       WHEREAS, Predatory law firms charging exorbitant fees have 
     engaged in aggressive marketing campaigns [hurting veterans]. 
     . . . The American Legion urges Congress to provide the 
     necessary oversight [for] the implementation of the Camp 
     Lejeune Justice Act to ensure veterans receive fair 
     consideration.

  Sounds pretty good. American Legion, we all like them. I am a member, 
by the way. By the way, I am a U.S. marine, too, which makes me really 
mad about this. So they are all supporting my bill. It is a simple 
bill. The VFW has come out in support of my bill as well. What does my 
bill do?
  Well, No. 1, it goes back to the Biden administration's Justice 
Department recommendations. So I am doing, right now, on the Senate 
floor, what the Biden administration's Justice Department told us to 
do--10 percent cap on contingency fees, 2 percent cap for filing the 
necessary paperwork. All right. Sounds pretty fair. It is actually not 
that fair because, by the way, they are not doing a lot of work.
  The government doesn't have a defense in these lawsuits. This isn't 
like some giant litigation. Marines, if you are listening, you can do 
this without a trial lawyer's help. You don't need it. Don't be fooled, 
but they are being fooled. OK. We know that. Everybody knows that. It 
was predicted it would happen.
  So all we are going to do is go back to the Biden administration's 
recommendation: 10 percent cap on contingency fees, 2 percent for 
filing paperwork. And it does one other thing--and by the way, shame on 
the VA on this. They have been good. They are worried, but shame on the 
VA on this.
  And, again, you wonder who is running this administration, probably a 
lot of trial lawyers. The VA issued a reg that said the payments to the 
sick marines that are being awarded would enable the VA to pay the 
lawyers first and then the marines who are sick second. That is the 
VA's own reg. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that?
  Most of the time when you hire a lawyer with a contingency fee, the 
client gets the money, and then you pay your lawyer. Right now, the VA 
wrote a reg, saying: Let's pay the lawyers first, and the sick marines 
will get paid second. That is in a reg.
  So my bill is very simple: There is a 10-percent cap on contingency 
fees. That is fair. That is what the Biden administration's Justice 
Department recommended. There is a 2-percent cap for filing paperwork. 
Heck, should be 1 percent in my view. We are giving them a gift. And it 
gets rid of this outrageous reg from the VA to pay the trial lawyers 
before you pay the U.S. marines who are sick.
  Simple bill, but it will have a huge impact on the sick marines who 
deserve compensation. And it will let them and their families, many of 
whom are old--remember, this is from marines who served in the 1980s at 
Camp Lejeune--it will let them and their families not have to deal with 
these unscrupulous trial lawyers who are taking their money.
  This sickens me. I have not seen an issue that is so wrong. That is 
so wrong. We saw it coming. The Biden administration, to its credit, 
saw it coming. We tried to fix it. My colleagues on the other side of 
the aisle blocked it, and so I am just trying to fix it.
  The VFW wants us to fix it. The American Legion wants us to fix it. I 
guarantee you, if you are an American watching this right now, you want 
us to fix it. The U.S. marines who sacrificed their lives for our 
Nation want to fix it. So it is a simple issue.
  I would be shocked if one of my Democratic colleagues came down here 
and blocked my bill. But if you do, it is going to answer the question: 
Whose side are you on; trial lawyers getting rich or the side of U.S. 
marines who right now are getting crumbs?
  So, as in legislative session, I ask unanimous consent that the 
Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. 5130 
and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; further, that 
the bill be considered read a third time and passed and the motion to 
consider be considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DURBIN. Reserving the right to object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me first salute my colleague from 
Alaska for his service to our Nation in the U.S. Marine Corps and to 
salute all our veterans for serving our Nation and tell them that as 
chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the bill which the Senator 
from Alaska introduced 13 days ago is within the jurisdiction of this 
committee, and I am more than happy to sit down with him and to discuss 
righting wrongs, changing language, responding to this in the right 
way. But I have to say that the Senator from Alaska did not tell us the 
whole story.
  The whole story is a little different, significantly. Back in days 
gone by, I was a trial lawyer--yes, I just admitted that on the floor 
of the U.S. Senate--for a living. It goes back many years, 1982 was the 
last time I ever practiced law, but I handled personal injury cases 
before Federal courts and State courts in Illinois.
  I still have memories of that experience and enough of a memory to 
suggest that there are parts of the story that the Senator from Alaska 
did not include which are really relevant to this conversation, and it 
is an important, timely conversation.
  It is worth reflecting on the fact that we are dealing with Camp 
Lejeune, a Marine Corps base in North Carolina. It is legendary. It has 
so many historic achievements for the men and now women who are being 
trained to serve in the Marine Corps who have gone through Camp Lejeune 
and with that training set out to defend America and to offer their 
lives and many of them gave their lives in that process. And so it is 
understandable that Camp Lejeune has this unique place in American 
history, but it also has a unique place in American environmental 
history.
  You see, there was a determination in 1980 that the water that Marine 
Corps recruits and officers and their family were drinking at Camp 
Lejeune was ``highly contaminated.'' ``Highly contaminated.'' The year 
was 1980. When did the government acknowledge this problem? Seventeen 
years later, seventeen years with all of these marines, the officers 
and the recruits and

[[Page S6884]]

their families exposed to highly contaminated water sources.
  You want to get angry? I get angry over that. Contamination 
discovered but not disclosed for 17 years.
  Well, then you say: Well, thank goodness they have discovered it and 
admitted it. That must have taken care of the problem. It didn't even 
get close to addressing the problem because there were all sorts of 
legal defenses that were raised to the families who were pleading for 
help.
  Many of them felt the birth defects in their families, neurological 
issues, cancers, and even deaths were attributable to this highly 
contaminated water. And yet they couldn't recover. They couldn't 
recover.
  It took this Congress and this President, Joe Biden, to decide to 
change that.
  And so in August of this year, the Veterans' Committee reported to 
the floor the PACT Act, and included in the PACT Act was an opportunity 
for the families who had been harmed--and many members of the family 
may have died--to finally be compensated.
  Well, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act corrected the situation and 
enabled the veterans and their families who suffer from health effects 
of Camp Lejeune contaminated water to bring Federal lawsuits in the 
Eastern District of North Carolina against the Federal Government to 
seek economic and noneconomic damages.
  Now, there is an earlier approach you can use before you take this to 
Federal court, taking it to the Navy JAG Tort Claims Unit to see if 
they accept your claim for damages to your family, for medical bills, 
lost wages, whatever it happens to be.
  The Navy can accept the claim, settle the case. If the Navy denies 
the claim or does not act within 6 months after you filed it, the 
victim has to file the lawsuit in Federal court.
  So, first, there is an administrative opportunity for the Navy to 
pay, to say it is a legitimate claim, let's pay it.
  But if they fail to act within 6 months or refuse the claim, your 
recourse is to go to the Federal district court.
  Now, let me tell you what that entails--a lawsuit, a lawsuit where 
you have to prove damages. Now, that takes some doing in a Federal 
court.
  If this were a compensation fund, you could understand where they 
would say: Well, you are going to automatically recover. The question 
is, How much? You have to prove the damages are related to the 
contamination of the water at Camp Lejeune. And when you have proven 
that there is a proximate cause, a relationship, then you have to prove 
up your damages.
  At what point do you want to do that alone in a courtroom? Perhaps 
you do. I wouldn't even want to do it without some advice from some 
group.
  If it were accepted that liability was already established, if it 
were accepted what the standard damages might be, then a legal fee 
should reflect that. I don't argue with that at all. I am happy to work 
with the Senator in that regard.
  But what do you do for the cases where you have to prove it? Yes, I 
was in Camp Lejeune. I was working there, my family was there, between 
1953 and 1987 or any other period of time. You have to establish all 
that in a court. What does it take to establish that in a court? It 
isn't just a simple declaration in a courtroom under oath--depositions, 
interrogatories, discovery process. It is all part of a Federal court 
case. Do you need a lawyer for that? I would recommend to anyone, don't 
do it alone. You could stumble, fail to make something important a part 
of the record, and not recover a penny when it is all said and done.
  The question is, How much should the lawyers be paid?
  Well, once again harkening back to decades ago when I did this for a 
living, they do it on a contingency fee. A contingency fee basically 
says: I get paid if you recover. If you don't recover, I don't get 
paid.
  How much do I get paid? Now, that is an issue we ought to bring up, I 
would say to Senator Sullivan, in conversation. How much should you get 
paid for this?
  The usual fee is a third. I charged much less. If you were in a case 
with workers' compensation where you didn't have to prove liability, it 
might be 20 percent. The Senator from Alaska is suggesting 2 percent.
  Well, I am sorry to tell you, but you are not going to get a 
competent attorney to take the case and represent any marines at 2 
percent.
  The 10 percent, which he referred to and quotes the Department of 
Justice as the source, was for the case where there was no adversarial 
event in court. It is a case like a compensation case, where you say--
you automatically don't have to prove that it happened to you, just 
prove up your damages. That is a different case altogether.
  So here is what I would like to say. I sympathize with your complaint 
that television screens are being inundated with advertising from trial 
attorneys. I don't know who they are. I couldn't name one of them 
personally, but I know that they see this as an opportunity. Why? 
Because they have 2 years from our passage of this act to file a 
lawsuit. So they are anxious to get this done, move forward. I am sure 
those who were injured in the process would also like to move forward.
  So I would say to the Senator from Alaska: Let's sit down together. 
The bill that you introduced almost 2 weeks ago is the starting point 
of a conversation which should take place. It is an important one. But 
at the end of the day, these marines and others who were victims of 
this water contamination waited for years for the opportunity for 
compensation.
  Because the U.S. Congress passed the PACT Act and because President 
Joe Biden signed it into law, they have their day in court, if 
necessary. That is a remarkable achievement when you consider how far 
back this goes. It is remarkable.

  We want to make sure that those marines who were denied justice all 
those years leading up to the passage of that legislation have an 
opportunity to recover or their day in court, if that is what it takes. 
But we also don't want to handcuff them with attorneys representing 
them who would accept 2 percent as a fee or 10 percent as a fee.
  You just don't understand, Senator, that if I am going to prepare the 
case to take it into a Federal court, work--good work is involved in a 
good case.
  Do some of these lawyers overcharge? You bet they do, and you and I 
can talk about that and the disclosure and the actual contingency fee 
so that marines and their families know what they are getting into and 
decide for themselves based on that knowledge.
  In terms of whether the marine should be paid or the lawyer first, 
there is no question about it. The marine should be paid, no question 
about it. And we can clarify that as well. I think that is something we 
should do.
  What I say to you, I offer to work with you on this to make sure that 
we do not deny a day in court or deny adequate representation to the 
marines who are seeking to recover. Let us expose those who may be 
exploiting the situation together. I join you in an outrage against 
that kind of phenomena, but in the meantime, let's do something 
positive and bipartisan that gives these marines justice. They have 
waited too long. And let's do it as soon as we can.
  I am going to object at this moment, but I am not going to quit on 
this issue if you want to continue. I want to work with you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Mr. President, I want to let my other colleagues speak, 
but as the chairman mentioned--I have a lot of respect for the 
chairman. You can tell he is a good trial lawyer, but he said I don't 
understand.
  Actually, I do understand. I understand a lot of what is going on 
here, and, unfortunately, I understand the power of the trial bar that 
blocked a lot of this. That is what happened. We know it.
  My colleague mentioned 2 percent. Remember, this is the Biden 
administration's recommendation. It is not like they are enemies of the 
trial lawyers--2 percent to file a fee. OK? You can file a fee in your 
sleep. That is pretty generous, and 10 percent when--I am not sure the 
chairman has read his own bill, but the Camp Lejeune Justice Act 
actually restricts the Federal Government from making traditional 
defenses in court, making the job of lawyers much easier and much less 
burdensome, which is a whole other reason you need 10 percent. Ten 
percent is generous. Ten percent is a compromise.

[[Page S6885]]

  So here is my question for the chairman, again, whom I have a lot of 
respect for.
  It doesn't kick in for 2 years, but every single day, one of these 
marine's families is getting scammed, and we all know it. We see it. 
Why the heck did the trial lawyers spend a billion dollars in ads? out 
of philanthropy? No, so they can get even wealthier.
  So here is my request, and I hope the chairman will take it on. He is 
the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. We still have time before the 
end of this year. Bring this to the committee, mark it up. You do 
markups every Thursday to consider nominees. No offense to the 
nominees. U.S. marines who are sick are a lot more important. Address 
this right now.
  So if I can get the chairman's commitment to work with me and others 
who care about this, to mark up this bill and UC it with us before the 
end of this Congress and get it over to the House to get justice for 
marines--not for trial lawyers--I would welcome that commitment from 
the chairman before the end of the year.
  Is that something that you would agree to, Mr. Chairman?
  Mr. DURBIN. I will agree to work with you on this.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. By the end of the year?
  Mr. DURBIN. I can't tell you that we are going to achieve it in 3 
weeks.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Oh, I think it is pretty easy. It is the Biden Justice 
Department.
  Mr. DURBIN. I hope we can, but let's do it in good faith. I am 
willing to sit down with you and work on it. Anyone who is trying to 
exploit these marines, their family, or others who were victims of this 
contaminated water that has been going on for decades, I have no use 
for them. But I do believe that in some cases they need good legal 
representation, and when you cap the fees where you capped them, good 
lawyers, frankly, are not going to accept cases. That means that marine 
may not get his day in court and may not get a case presented that is 
really critical for him and his family.
  So let's try to find that happy medium. Let's try to stop the abusing 
that is going on, if we can. The advertising, I have seen it. 
Everybody--you can't miss it. It is everywhere, but the point is, let's 
do it in a conscientious way, thoughtful way, and as quickly as we can.
  You introduced this bill almost 2 weeks ago. It is a significant 
change in the law. To think that we can finish it in 2 weeks, I am not 
sure, but I will try. At least I will give my good-faith effort to try 
and reach a place where you and I can agree.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I hope, if you are a member the American Legion 
or the VFW, you want to call the Senate and tell them to get this done 
by the end of the year, we welcome your phone calls--welcome your phone 
calls.
  I hope we can get that done, Mr. Chairman. I know some of my other 
colleagues--Senator Tuberville also feels very passionate about this.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. TUBERVILLE. Mr. President, I want to thank my colleague Senator 
Sullivan for calling up this important legislation.
  You know, I have the pleasure of serving with him on the Armed 
Services Committee and Veterans' Affairs Committee and am proud to join 
him in this effort.
  You know, the brave men and women who serve in our Armed Forces know 
they might be asked to pay the ultimate sacrifice, but no person, no 
matter how selfless, joins the military willing to give up their health 
or their family's health because of toxic chemicals in their drinking 
water--nobody does.
  Unfortunately, that is the reality faced by many marines who spent 
time at Camp Lejeune. And since the passage of the PACT Act earlier 
this year, we have seen unprincipled trial lawyers jump at the chance 
to take advantage of the situation.
  The bill we are discussing closes a loophole in the PACT Act that 
should not have existed in the first place.
  I have 500,000 veterans in the State of Alabama. I got on the 
Veterans' Committee to help those people.
  We worked for almost a year on this PACT Act. It wasn't near 
complete, but at the State of the Union last year, President Biden gets 
up and says we are going to get this thing done, and we are going to 
get it done quick.
  Nothing happens quick in this building, I will tell you right now. 
And if it does happen quick, it doesn't work.
  We were probably three-quarters of the way done with it, and last 
year we were told we are going to take it--from the majority leader in 
the Senate, and said we are going to take it. We are going to run it 
through. It wasn't ready to go because we had things like this that 
were going to be a problem.
  I voted against it. I caught heck from my veterans back in Alabama 
and still catching it. Until today, I am still explaining why I did 
this. And I told them: It wasn't ready to come out. A $500 billion bill 
wasn't ready to come out to help the veterans of this country. It was 
going to have problems. And I told them: I hope I am wrong. I hope it 
all works. But here we are, just a few months later, and we have got 
our first problem. This won't be the last. This will not be the last.
  One example is this section 804, the Camp Lejeune Act, while well-
intentioned and meant to be right and right a wrong, this section 
doesn't include a critical guardrail to protect those it meant to 
protect.
  So, currently, bad actors are able to profit from this misfortune of 
veterans. And, again, hopefully we can get this right. I mean, because 
if this--and it is not small. This is a defect of the bill that was 
rushed through for some unknown reason. We are going to have other 
problems, but we need to correct this problem first. We are all sick of 
these dang commercials and all these lawyers making this money.
  So as a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, I am 
committed to protecting those who protected us, and I hope we all are 
in here. This includes doing what I can to fix this PACT Act along with 
my colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
  I am disappointed my colleagues failed their commitment to protecting 
our veterans in this bill, and hopefully we can get it right.
  I yield the floor to my colleague.
  Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Senator Tuberville.
  I just hope that our colleagues will do what is right for our 
veterans and get this done by the end of this year.
  If you are a veteran or a member of the American Legion or the Marine 
Corps, call the Senate, call the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. I 
am willing to work tonight to get this done, but we cannot delay. We 
cannot do rope-a-dope tactics here in the Senate to give the trial 
lawyers the money when it should go to U.S. marines and their families.
  I also want to call on my colleague Senator Blackburn.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be 
permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes prior to the scheduled vote and 
that Senator Cardin be permitted to speak for up to 15 minutes prior to 
the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.