[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 146 (Tuesday, September 19, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1801]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DENYING THE POOR EQUAL ACCESS TO THE LAW

                                 ______


                            HON. TOM LANTOS

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, September 19, 1995

  Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I invite my colleagues to join me in 
opposing those who continue to scapegoat the poor for our Nation's 
ills, and now seek to kill the Legal Services Corporation which is 
often the only source of legal aid for those least able to pay or 
navigate their way through our system of justice. I wish to draw my 
colleagues attention to an honest, take-no-prisoners editorial in the 
San Francisco Chronicle which clearly demonstrates how utterly 
repugnant these proposals are to eliminate Federal funding for legal 
aid. I urge my colleagues to join me in protecting this important and 
vital guarantor of justice in America.

           [From the San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 13, 1995]

                Denying the Poor Equal Access to the Law

       A repugnant attack on the poor gets a hearing on the floor 
     of the U.S. Senate tomorrow with the scheduled vote on a bill 
     that would slash funds for legal aid and eliminate the 30-
     year-old Legal Services Corporation.
       The 323 shoestring community legal agencies funded by the 
     corporation often provide the only recourse for members of 
     the nation's underclass who are dealing with domestic 
     violence emergencies, tenant problems, nursing home 
     complaints, discrimination and wage disputes and myriad other 
     plights requiring legal expertise.
       But in the name of balancing the budget, the Senate 
     Appropriations Committee passed a bill that would cut 
     already-insufficient $400 million funding by about half, 
     abolish the corporation and make right-wing fundamentalists 
     happy by imposing restrictions on the kinds of cases, such as 
     divorce, that can be represented.
       A similar and equally harmful and distasteful measure by 
     Representative George Gekas, R-Pa., is making its way through 
     the House.
       The issue is ``whether the government should be involved in 
     breaking up families,'' was the know-nothing reaction of a 
     spokesman for presidential hopeful Senator Phil Gramm when 
     asked about the Texas Republican's support of the legal aid 
     bills.
       Typically, however, local legal aid lawyers working with 
     limited funds must give priority to martial cases that 
     involve spousal battering. They must often refer less urgent 
     cases to others.
       California received $47.2 million this year to help the 
     poor with civil legal matters, far from enough to provide 
     legal aid to all the indigent, not least of all poverty-
     stricken elderly, who need such help. Proposed cuts for the 
     state could total $19 million.
       Besides trying to use government-funded legal aid as a 
     symbol of misplaced moral values, conservatives charge that 
     the Legal Services Corporation spends too much time on high-
     profit class action suits.
       To the contrary, most of the work of these dedicated, 
     underpaid legal aid lawyers is spent on the gritty, routine 
     case work involving families and housing , the disabled, 
     patient rights, consumer and utility issues and wage issues. 
     The legal and lawyers also help the poor wade through 
     bureaucratic labyrinths that often make it difficult to 
     collect the few federal benefits to which they are entitled.
       The relatively small federal outlay in legal aid funds has 
     meant the difference between justice and injustice for many 
     poor Americans.
       It is an investment that must continue to be honored if the 
     country is not to abrogate its historic promise of equal 
     access to the legal system.

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