Stop Slashing Legal Aid to Poor

In the debates now rocking Congress over which programs to trim in the coming fiscal year, the Legal Services Corp. has emerged as a favorite target. Earlier this month the House Appropriations Committee voted to cut by half the allocation to the organization, which funds and trains regional agencies offering legal assistance to people who cannot afford basic and essential legal services such as representation in wrongful evictions from one’s home or in the face of domestic violence threats. The proposed $141-million allocation reflects a precipitous drop from fiscal year 1995’s $278 million and 1994’s $400 million. Today in the House there is an important chance to rectify that downward spiral.

The Legal Services Corp. has already been stripped of much of its legal authority: Last year Congress barred it from filing class-action suits and prohibited its lawyers from receiving fees from losing defendants.

Today, the House is scheduled to vote on the $141 million earmarked for the corporation. Fortunately, it has the chance to do something far more constructive: By voting for an amendment sponsored by Reps. Alan Mollohan (D-W. Va.) and Jon Fox (R-Pa.), House members would ensure the agency’s survival by boosting its 1997 funding to $278 million.

In recent weeks, fierce opponents of the Legal Services Corp. like Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) have argued that the organization misuses its money for such political purposes as blocking welfare reform. But in fact, the corporation has focused its legislative efforts on correcting statutory glitches and ending unfair lending and credit practices.

Legal aid opponents have also claimed that volunteer private lawyers and state and local agencies could take over the corporation’s job. But regional agencies like Orange County’s Legal Aid Society depend on the Legal Services Corp. for about 80% of their funding, and it’s highly improbable that large numbers of busy corporate lawyers will suddenly find the time to represent America’s burgeoning population of working poor.

It would be a mistake, however, to characterize the debate over the Legal Services Corp. as one between liberals who want to empower the poor and law-and-order conservatives who want to defend the status quo. For in fact, the organization is perhaps the federal institution best capable of upholding that principle on which the stability of the current order depends: equal justice under the law.