Should Congress Pull the Plug on the Legal Services Corp.? : * Yes: Its anti-family litigation has helped expand welfare, divorce, abortion and the homosexual agenda.

In Pennsylvania, a prisoner brought a custody suit against the family who had adopted the child he fathered by his rape of a 13-year-old. In Georgia, a transsexual attempted to sue the state health department to pay for a sex-change operation. In New York, a public housing tenant who had committed a drug crime fought his eviction on the ground that he could not be evicted without 30 days’ notice.

What do all of these disturbing cases have in common? You and I paid for them. That’s right, our tax dollars, channeled through the Legal Services Corp., funded these cases and many more like them during the past 21 years, to the tune of $5 billion.

Legal Services, which is a nonprofit corporation set up by the federal government, supposedly provides poor people with legal services. In reality, it has been a deep well of anti-family litigation that has helped to expand welfare dependency, divorce, abortion and the homosexual political agenda. The corporation has been active in eroding legal protections for the traditional family, pushing the children’s rights and making prisons cozy for criminals.

When it comes to families in crisis, Legal Services grantees seem to be more interested in facilitating divorce than in helping repair marriages. Legal Services grantees have argued that mediation, an important way of resolving domestic disputes, should be avoided because, they allege, the woman is always at a disadvantage. They have also advised lawyers working on divorce agreements to reduce the father’s visitation time and to avoid cash settlements so that the mother can be eligible for welfare. The agenda here is clear: Break up the family and replace Dad with a welfare check.

While encouraging welfare dependence, Legal Services programs have also blocked attempts at welfare reform. The most well-known case is in New Jersey, where Legal Services once again joined its frequent co-litigators, the ACLU and National Organization for Women’s Legal Defense Fund. They argued that the state’s capping of welfare payments to mothers who have additional children while on welfare violated a woman’s right to procreate.

Legal Services lawsuits have also helped to subsidize the destructive habits of alcoholics and drug addicts. In recent years, Legal Services grantees have helped thousands of substance addicts obtain monthly disability checks courtesy of employers and taxpayers.

Criminals often find a friend in Legal Services. Throughout the years, grantees have made sure that prisons look more like country clubs than places to incarcerate dangerous offenders.

Since 1977, Legal Services grantees have been prohibited from involvement in abortion-related cases. Nonetheless, Legal Services has remained firm in its commitment to abortion on demand and has worked around the law, attempting to secure unlimited taxpayer-funded abortions. Legal Services has been involved in most of the major cases in the history of abortion litigation, including Doe vs. Bolton, the companion case to Roe vs. Wade.

You would think that the new Republican-controlled Congress, with its mandate to control spending and reduce government intervention in people’s lives, would be chomping at the bit to defund such nonsense. But even among Republicans, this pot of gold for the far left has supporters who are working to ensure its survival. Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of a House appropriations subcommittee, and Rep. Bill McCollum (R-Fla.), chairman of a House judiciary subcommittee, fought to save Legal Services by retaining funding with some “reform” provisions. In the Senate, Nancy Kassebaum’s (R-Kan.) Labor and Human Resources Committee is moving a bill aimed at extending Legal Services’ life. Incredibly, Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the budget committee, has offered an amendment on the Senate floor to restore Legal Services funding that had been eliminated by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Saving Legal Services would be a big mistake. Legal Services should be eliminated, saving the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year, plus billions in legislative impact and litigation costs. It doesn’t make sense for Congress to fund the groups that will turn around and sue to undo the reforms it was elected to enact.

The legal profession itself should do more to help the poor. For too long, taxpayers have subsidized one of the most lucrative professions by relieving it of some of its responsibility to do pro bono work.

Legal Services is remarkably resistant to reform and oversight. The structure of the program guarantees that it will remain unaccountable and uncontrollable until Congress pulls the plug. There are better ways to help the poor. Legal Services should be abolished.