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> these clauses preventing class action lawsuits seem baseless to me.

I'd go even further and say corrupt and evil. Yet these baseless clauses have been around long before the modern GOP, so while I agree with your sentiment, I'd broaden it from "GOP" to "greedy corporates and their government puppets from any political party."

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While you're right, Dems recieve a lot of Wall Street cash and do their bidding often, here all D's voted against it.[0] Both are "corrupted" to use your words but I'd say one is "worse" at least on this one issue.

[0] And yes, most did it for political reasons I imagine.

This easily could have been an issue raised during a Democratic majority congress and passed with the same story. After all, everybody hates lawyers that get rich while class members get a coupon.

It's not about the issue.

Democrats passed the law that created the agency Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

You may complain that class-action lawyers get much more money than the plaintiffs, but that's the nature of class actions. They are meant for situations where many indiviuals are harmed, but each harm is too small to justify the cost of a court case. So naturally the plaintiffs get small payouts: each of them suffered a small damage. And the lawyers get big payouts: they handled the paperwork of thousands of clients.

> They are meant for situations where many indiviuals are harmed, but each harm is too small to justify the cost of a court case.

Don't they also get used for cases where (spitballing here) half a town gets cancer because the chemical plant in the area has been illegal dumping their effluents next door?

Those cancer victims aren't getting coupons

I wasn't actually saying class actions are bad, but that it makes a workable political excuse.

To expound on your [0], remember that Republicans voted on repealing Obamacare when they knew it was going to be vetoed, but once they were actually in control, suddenly they didn't have enough votes.

Except the democrats were the ones who put in these rules in the first place.

… and that’s true on almost every issue of importance (climate change, healthcare, etc.). The main exception is deference to national security agencies on things like encryption or detention.

Nitpick: my word was "corrupt", not "corrupted".

And yet, this particular law was opposed by all Democrats in the Senate and was supported by every Republican except two. It passed due to Mike Pence's tie-breaking vote.

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