Congress Must Lift Restrictions on Legal Aid
Commentary
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For the first time in more than a decade,
Congress has a real chance to lift the crippling restrictions on the federally
financed Legal Services Corporation (LSC) that have hampered the agency's
efforts to assist poor people seeking redress through the courts. At a time
when many people are struggling against the threat of foreclosure, eviction or
loss of health and unemployment benefits as a result of the economic downturn,
the LSC's services are needed more than ever. Congress should seize this
opportunity to make them available as widely as possible.
The LSC was created by Congress in 1974 to help fund state and local legal aid
organizations that represent indigent clients in civil cases. But after the
Republican takeover of Congress that began in 1994, lawmakers imposed
increasingly punishing restrictions on how LSC funds could be used to press
poor people's claims in court.
One restriction prohibited plaintiff's lawyers who prevail in civil rights and
consumer protection cases from recovering attorney's fees from the opposing
side. Legal aid groups often use such fees to help support their operating
expenses. Another restriction barred legal aid lawyers from representing
clients in class action suits that seek relief for problems affecting large
numbers of people.
A third provision, the so-called "poison pill" restriction, proved
even more insidious in its effect on the ability of indigent clients to have
their day in court. It extended a long-standing ban on the use of federal funds
in abortion cases and cases involving prison inmates or undocumented immigrants
to any private or state grants a legal aid group might receive. That sweeping
prohibition effectively tied up hundreds of millions of dollars in private and
non-federal funds that legal aid groups otherwise could have used to litigate
cases ranging from voting rights and medical insurance benefits to public
housing complaints and labor union disputes.
But this week a Senate appropriations subcommittee led by Sen. Barbara Mikulski
stripped that provision from the bill when it approved the LSC's $400 million
budget for next year; the panel's appropriation represented a $10 million
increase over the LSC's 2009 budget. And earlier, House lawmakers had approved
an even larger increase, to $440 million, and also lifted the ban on class
action lawsuits.
While the Senate bill provides less than the $435 million requested by the
Obama administration, which also supports lifing most restrictions on the LSC,
its rejection of the "poison pill" provision removes one of the major
obstacles to more effective legal representation for the poor.
Senator Mikulski obviously had to make a tough call in deciding whether to give
up some of the agency's funding in order to win enough Republican support to
lift the bill's most onorous restriction, but we think she made the right
choice. The legislation her subcommittee marked up still faces more hurdles
before it can become law, but for the first time since 1996 it looks as if the
LSC finally may be able to get back to providing the kind of essential legal
services its founders envisioned and that poor people desperately need in order
to secure their rights under the law.