House Minority Leader Blake A. Filippi: Lawsuits

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Reasonable minds can differ sometimes, and that's usually a problem when you have litigation. And if this bill already prevents private litigants from, or excuse me, a private party from being sued, and I think that's been said clearly, that's the intent, we don't read this as closing the door on that. We think there is a possibility that private individual businesses and municipalities can be sued if they're not complying with the regulations put forth pursuant to the ECCCC plan. So what's the harm in passing this just to be sure and say, you know what, let's close the door on that. Let's confirm that no matter what, the suits are only against government officials. Because we've gone through the analysis. We just don't think it's totally clear that this only applies to the state being a defendant. I just don't understand why we'd not have belt and suspenders on this one. There's clearly a difference. Rep Newberry is a very accomplished attorney, and so is Leader Blazewski, and they can't agree. And I just don't think we should be passing something out of here where lawyers can have a reasonable disagreement about what the law means because, you know, that's going to end up going to court. And we shouldn't just even allow that possibility. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.