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Gentle lady yields back. We just strike the last word. Gentleman from Kentucky is recognized. >> You know, a lot of the fights or the debates up here are left versus right.

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And there are a few of them that aren't left versus right. This is one of those. This is the big guys versus the little guys. said, "We don't have enough people

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up here speaking for the little guys," which could include patent holders who've taken a beating legislatively in

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the courts over the last decade or two decades and are struggling. This is just another effort to keep them from getting their day in court. Uh this, you know,

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there's a boogeyman here, which is China or other foreign adversaries. If that were really what this bill went was going to go after, we could narrowly

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tailor a bill that did that. And in fact, I'll offer an amendment to make this bill into that. But that is not what this bill is. This bill is so

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overly broad that it will basically deter investments in legitimate claims that that startups and small plaintiffs

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have. Um, the bill's language is so expansive that it may require disclosure of entire chains of financial interests, including venture capitalists, limited

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partners, pension funds, or even shareholders of public companies. It compels submission of funding agreements to opposing parties without protections

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for proprietary information like funding amounts, waterfall structures, or investment terms. Information that has no relevance to the legal merits of the

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case. But it could help the defendants, the big guys, know how deep your pockets are and how long they're going to have to go to starve you out in the

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litigation. Even the requirement for inc camera review is problematic. Defendants are not required to disclose indemnification agreements. Yet

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plaintiffs must expose sensitive financial backing that could be weaponized through retaliation, harassment, or reputational damage.

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Registered investment adviserss already subject to full FEC oversight would be swept into disclosure mandates duplicating regulations without any

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national security justification. And by admitting that these disclosures are inadmissible and not discoverable, the bill conceds that they serve no

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evidentiary purpose and are instead designed to chill litigation finance, ultimately benefiting large corporate defendants. You don't have to take my

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word for it. Listen to the groups on the outside, some conservative, some liberal, but all trying to rep represent

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everyday Americans who deserve their day in court. And if this bill passes, it will squatchch their voice by cutting

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off their funding, by intimidating their financeers. Um, and that's what the big guys would love. So, I'm going to be opposed to

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this bill and I will offer um amendments and hopefully they will be accepted because they're offered in good faith to

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do what we're being told the bill does, which is to keep foreign adversaries from infiltrating our our courts and changing the balance of justice in the

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United States. And with that, I yield back. Gentleman yields back. I believe the gentleman from Kentucky has an amendment. >> Have an amendment at the desk. Clerk

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will report >> amendment to the amendment point of order. >> Point of order reserved by the ranking member from Maryland. Without objection, the me be considered as read. The

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gentleman from Kentucky is recognized to explain his amendment. This this is a very simple amendment. Um, it's been proposed today by the proponents of the

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bill that this is about keeping foreign influence out of our courts and our foreign adversaries, keeping them out of our uh, IP and generally protecting

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America from foreign influence. So, my amendment offered in good faith would limit this bill to exactly that. It

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says, and it makes an exception for the financial disclosure for anybody who's a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States or any entity

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organized and principally operated under the laws of the United States or any state thereof and not controlled directly or indirectly by a foreign person. That's all that's all the

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amendment does. It's very simple. It basically says that this bill is about foreign adversaries and we're not going to make it broadly applicable to other

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things. And u I yield back.
