[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 18164-18170]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    PIGFORD FARMS AND DISCRIMINATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Madam Speaker, it's my privilege to be recognized 
to address you here on the floor of the United States House of 
Representatives and to take up the issues that are on my mind and the 
issues that I hope are on the minds of the American people, the minds 
of the people who are the elected leaders here in the United States 
Congress, and hopefully on the minds of those of us who see this 
American taxpayer dollar as a pretty sacred dollar that should be 
invested wisely and responsibly.
  And there are any number of issues that can be brought up under that 
particular parameter. But I choose to come to the floor tonight, Madam 
Speaker, to talk to you about the situation of Pigford Farms.
  Pigford Farms is an issue that emerged here in the United States 
government around about and exactly on, began I'd say in 1983, in 1983 
when the United States Department of Agricultural civil rights office 
was closed. At that period of time, there wasn't an oversight 
department within the USDA that might have looked over the shoulders of 
our USDA employees to see if they were actually treating people equally 
with equal opportunity under the law, as I think everyone in this 
Congress will agree every American citizen deserves equal opportunity 
under the law. That's part of the 14th Amendment. We take an oath to 
uphold the Constitution that includes the 14th Amendment and equal 
protection under the law and provide for equal opportunity, not 
necessarily equality of result, but equality of opportunity.
  And so I suspect that that focus under the USDA diminished somewhat 
or at least didn't have a check on it from 1983 on. But with the 
Pigford Farms issue--and this is the largest civil rights class action 
lawsuit in the history of America, Pigford Farms.

                              {time}  2010

  It looms over the heads of the Members of Congress here to be not 
what it was just a few years ago, $1.05 billion, not what it was when 
the Farm Bill passed here on the floor of the House under the direction 
of the chairman of the Ag Committee, Collin Peterson of Minnesota, at 
an additional $100 million, which was designed to be the sum total that 
would ever be required to sweep up any of the remnants of Pigford 
Farms, this civil rights case, and package it all up and make sure that 
people were compensated and put it behind us. No, it has reared its 
ugly head again, Madam Speaker. It's reared its ugly head with an issue 
called Pigford II.
  It wasn't enough to have Pigford I. Pigford I, which emerged because 
I believe there was discrimination taking place within some of our USDA 
offices, particularly around the South, where the culture of 
segregation had prevailed beyond the end of the legal segregation that 
we had, and was still, I believe, in some of the offices manifested in 
the form of discrimination between the Farm Service Administration 
personnel. But that discrimination that then perhaps, and I think 
likely, and I believe did carry on through some of those years of the 
eighties, perhaps as far back as the seventies, but this case deals 
with the eighties, the eighties and the nineties.
  So Pigford Farms, the chronology of it goes this way, Madam Speaker. 
In 1983, the United States Department of Agriculture Civil Rights 
Office was closed. In 1994, and this would be under Bill Clinton's 
administration with Dan Glickman as the Secretary of Agriculture, 
commissioned an accounting firm or an analysis firm to analyze the 
treatment of minorities and women in the Farm Service agencies 
throughout the United States.

[[Page 18165]]

  The study examined the conditions from 1990 until 1995 and looked 
primarily at crop payments and disaster payment programs in Commodity 
Credit Corporations, that's CCC, loans. A final report found from 1990 
until 1995, minority participation in Farm Service Administration 
programs was very low, and that minorities received less than their 
fair share of USDA money for crop payments, disaster payments, and 
loans.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I am always suspicious of the ``their fair 
share.'' I know that the word ``fair'' comes up in law over and over 
again. It comes up in many, many pieces of case law, precedent cases 
out there. If one would read through that case law, you will see the 
word ``fair'' over and over again. You will hear the word ``fair'' 
debated here on the House of Representatives over and over again. And 
whenever I hear this word ``fair,'' didn't receive their fair share, I 
always cringe, because you know, we are a body that should be dealing 
with facts and empirical data. And the judgment should be on the facts, 
not the judgment of the facts.
  But the word ``fair'' is always in the mind and the eyes of the 
person who utters that word ``fair.'' And none of us can agree on what 
the meaning of the word is of the word ``fair.'' Didn't receive their 
fair share. Perhaps that's true. I actually believe it is true.
  But Marilyn and I have raised three sons. And anybody that's raised 
two or more kids knows there is no such thing as fair unless it's the 
State Fair or the World Fair or the County Fair or a fair ball or a 
foul ball versus fair. But this word ``fair'' that's a judgment call is 
an amorphous word. It could be anything. It could be within the context 
of what was fair in 1776 doesn't fit with what was fair in 1865, 
doesn't fit with what was fair in 1942, and not with what's fair in 
2010. It's subjective, not objective, the term ``fair.'' And I would 
like to get away from using the word ``fair.''
  But nonetheless, the data didn't support that African American 
farmers were engaged in the programs to a similar extent as non-African 
American farmers, what primarily would be white farmers. So that was 
the report from 1994. Two years later, actually the end of that year, 
1996, December of 1996, the Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman 
ordered a suspension of government foreclosures all the way across the 
country pending the outcome of an investigation into racial 
discrimination in the United States Department of Agriculture's agency 
loan program. And he later announced the appointment of a USDA Civil 
Rights Task Force.
  So under the Reagan administration the USDA Civil Rights Office was 
closed, 1983. Dan Glickman in 1996 reestablished a similar agency 
called the USDA Civil Rights Task Force. And in February of '97 that 
task force recommended 92 changes to address the racial bias that 
existed, I believe, and to the extent is negotiable or debatable as 
part of the USDA Civil Rights Action Plan. And while the action plan 
acknowledged past problems and offered solutions for the future 
improvements, it did not satisfy those seeking redress of past wrongs 
and compensation for losses suffered.
  So there was a move that was made to try to alleviate the allegations 
of racial discrimination within the USDA. Dan Glickman stepped forward 
in 1996 and announced the formation of the Civil Rights Task Force. 
That press conference in December of 1996, Madam Speaker, was 
essentially the confession by the Department of Agriculture that they 
had engaged in racial discrimination with farm programs, crop payments, 
disaster payments, and loans. And this started then the litigation that 
was at least anticipated at the time. And this litigation began in 
1997.
  So in February, February 28 of '97, the Civil Rights Task Force of 
the USDA recommended 92 changes. And those changes were not 
implemented. And so in 1997, same year, the litigation against the U.S. 
Department of Agriculture for discrimination against African American 
farmers began in August of '97. Two cases. One was brought by Timothy 
Pigford, Pigford v. Glickman. The other one was Brewington v. Glickman. 
And it dealt with the farmers from 1983 until 1997, when they applied 
for Federal financial help, and again by failing to investigate 
allegations of discrimination, the allegations of discrimination were 
not aggressively investigated, and those who applied for financial help 
often didn't get it.
  But Madam Speaker, I remember those years. I remember what they were 
like for white farmers in my neighborhood. I remember what they were 
like for me. And I did business with the Farm Service Administration in 
some of those years that are included in these that I have noted. And I 
would remind the body, and yourself included, Madam Speaker, that we 
had a farm crisis throughout the eighties. I remember what that was 
like.
  I can remember a booming economy in 1979, where we had more work than 
we could do. I was doing custom work on farms, terraces, dams, 
waterways, cleaning out cattle yards, shaping up, trying to improve 
upon what Mother Nature gave us. And in 1979, we were already watching 
the consolidation of farms. We were watching family farms that people 
were being pushed off their land, they were losing their farms, they 
were selling their farms. The bid was so high sometimes that they 
couldn't afford not to sell. Other times they didn't have the equity to 
be able to stand and refuse an offer. And I lived right on the line 
between that good land that runs out flat all the way up to Canada 
versus from where I live it starts running hilly all the way down 
through Missouri into Arkansas until you get down to the rice country 
in Louisiana before it flattens out. Right there on that line.
  Good land, good producers to the north, they had more money and more 
equity in their land. It appreciated more because it produced more. And 
they could afford to buy that land from where I lived south in the 
hills and pay a pretty good price for it and fix it up. While that was 
going on was the beginning of the downward spiral of the farm crisis. 
And there was farm family after farm family.
  And I remember the people, I remember the families, I remember their 
kids, I remember them walking the long lane to get out and get on the 
bus. And I remember the days that they moved to town or moved off to a 
city or to another State and the neighbors bought the farm and hired me 
or others to come in and burn the buildings and bury them and put it 
back to farmland. Family after family after family.
  In 1979, very, very busy. In 1980, we were now down really into the 
meat of the farm crisis. And that went on, '79, 1980, '81, '82, '83, 
'84, '85. I, Madam Speaker, lived for 3\1/2\ years with a knot in my 
gut, not knowing if we were going to be able to make it, not knowing if 
I was going to be able to feed the kids. And on April 26, on Friday 
afternoon, at 3:00 o'clock in the afternoon, the FDIC, the Federal 
Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Iowa Highway Patrol pulled into 
my bank.

                              {time}  2020

  They locked the doors on the bank and stood a guard in front of that 
door with a red sticker on the door and it said, Banks closed by order 
of the FDIC.
  There I was. I actually had two pennies in my pocket to rub together, 
two pennies only, a payroll to meet with my crew. My accounts were 
frozen and so were the accounts of most of my customers. We had a lot 
of farmers go out of business throughout the whole decade of the 1980s, 
Madam Speaker. A lot of them were white farmers. A lot of them didn't 
have a recourse. A lot of them would have liked to have had a loan from 
the USDA. A lot of them would have had liked to have had some program 
benefits. A lot of them would have liked to have made what they would 
have considered to be a more fair shake from the board of the Farm 
Service Administration.
  There were very tough decisions made throughout that entire decade. I 
remember how difficult it was to be holding some assets, equipment, a 
little bit of land, and watching as my customers couldn't pay me. And 
when they couldn't pay me, it was awfully hard for me to pay the people 
that had provided credit for me.

[[Page 18166]]

  The downward spiral of that, as you see land values going down, 
equipment values going down, the assets even of accounts receivable 
going down, looking for a way out, you can't get out of a downward 
spiral. I watched it crush good men. I watched people whose entire 
identity was wrapped up in the farm that had been homesteaded by their 
ancestors. Some of them could hold it, but it ruined them. Others 
couldn't hold it, and they forever carried the guilt of that.
  And this farm crisis era of the 1980s is part of the Pigford Farms 
issue. It's not something that can be divorced from it. And so I am 
convinced that there were many black farmers that lost their farms 
during the 1980s when the farm crisis was in a downward spiral. There 
were many black farmers that believed that they should have had a loan 
program or a commodity program, a disaster payment that they didn't 
get, that they believed they were discriminated against by the board of 
the Farm Service Administration, which, by the way, is elected by all 
the people that are participating in the farm programs in the county. I 
don't have any doubt they believe they were discriminated against. In 
fact, I don't doubt some of them were discriminated against. And 
probably in one way or another all of them that didn't get the program 
they asked for were discriminated against in one way or another. I 
don't believe they were all discriminated against on if basis of their 
race, although some, I believe, were.
  That's the scenario of the farm crisis in the 1980s. That's the 
scenario by which the issue was raised and the civil rights class 
action lawsuit was brought forward against the USDA, that 1997 
litigation that brought about the Pigford v. Glickman case and the 
Brewington v. Glickman case that covered those years of 1983 until 
1997.
  Then in mid-November of 1997 the government agreed to mediation and 
to explore a settlement in Pigford. In the next month in December the 
parties agreed to stay the course for 6 months while mediation was 
pursued and settlement discussions took place. But the USDA had 
acknowledged past discrimination, and the Justice Department opposed 
blanket mediation, so they argued that the case had to be investigated 
separately. I would agree with that from a legal standpoint.
  But a year later, a little less, October of 1998, the Court issued a 
ruling that certified as a class black farmers who filed discrimination 
complaints against the USDA for the period of time between 1983 and 
February 21 of 1997. And then, in April of 1999, the Court approved 
this consent decree.
  This is Pigford I, and they set forth a revised settlement agreement 
of all claims raised by the class members that reviewed the claims. And 
that began almost immediately and the initial disbursement of checks to 
qualifying farmers began on November 9, 1999.
  Now, this is where some of the rest of the USDA employees came in. To 
summarize this, Madam Speaker, it works like this. Ronald Reagan's 
administration shut down their USDA Civil Rights Office and, under Bill 
Clinton, they started a similar entity back up again. In 1994, 2 years 
later, Dan Glickman, the Secretary of Agriculture, essentially 
confessed that the USDA had been discriminating against black farmers. 
So he appointed a company to do an analysis of it and, over time, it 
devolved into the courts declaring that the black farmers that had 
filed the complaints were a class, a class that could be dealt with by 
the courts to try to get them some compensation.
  And so Pigford I was born and it resulted in $1.05 billion being 
distributed--now there was a couple hundred million of administrative 
costs that I believe are in addition to that and not part of that 
accounting--but roughly $1.05 billion was distributed to farmers who, 
well, let me say this, African Americans who filed claims. And, in 
order to administer all of these claims, this massive number, over 
22,000 claims, it was required of the USDA to expedite this to call 
from across the country their FSA county directors, Farm Service 
Administration county directors, to come to Washington D.C. to 
administer these claims, to plow through these piles of paperwork.
  And so they did. And they came from many of the States and certainly 
they come from Iowa, we are a farm State after all. And as the FSA 
directors and other personnel arrived here in Washington, D.C. and 
began to dig down through this paperwork, working with a lot of it by 
certifying it as a paperwork application and others face-to-face or 
over the telephone with the claimants.
  Here is what came back to me. One of those individuals, and I have 
had anecdotes from several, but one of those individuals felt the 
burden of the corruption and the fraudulent claims that were coming 
forward in front of him, that he copied a box of applications, and a 
literal box of applications, which I am really sure that would not have 
been very constructive to him maintaining his job with the USDA.
  But it bothered his conscience so much, and when he came back to 
Iowa, he wanted to make it a point to make sure that I knew that these 
applications that he was dealing with were, he believed were a minimum 
of 75 percent fraudulent, 75 percent fraudulent. Now if you just apply 
that to the $1.05 billion in claims that were paid out, if he is right 
in that number, $750 million were wasted paying people that didn't have 
it coming, 250 or so million dollars perhaps went to those that did 
have a claim that had it coming.
  And these applications are quite interesting to read through them one 
after another, take the stack and read through them. And you will see 
that there also were copies of complaints that were filed about 
fraudulent claims. And the fraudulent claims might be, well, Johnny, 
yeah, he was raised on a farm but he wouldn't help his daddy. He went 
off to the city and became a drug addict. And when his daddy needed the 
help, Johnny wouldn't come and help his daddy. But now his daddy has 
died and Johnny wants the $50,000 that comes from the USDA under this 
claim.
  Pigford I was set up to do this, to pay out claims to people who 
met--I believe it's four criteria, and I will see, Madam Speaker, if I 
can remember them--people that were black, people that farmed or people 
that wanted to farm, those who believed they were discriminated against 
by the people within the FSA office, Farm Service Administration office 
within the counties, and those who also issued a complaint, filed a 
complaint in one of the criteria that's allowed under Pigford I.
  This would mean that if there is an individual that, if you were 
back, and you wanted to farm, and you wanted to apply for a farm 
program, and you believed that they would not treat you fairly because 
of your skin color, and you complained about it to the proper 
authorities, that's all that's required. You didn't have to be a 
farmer. There actually wasn't a verification that you would be black 
either, but let's just presume that's the case.
  So if you are an African American, and you didn't have to farm or 
ever farm or even know what a farm looked like, you just had to want to 
farm. You didn't have to know where the Farm Service Administration 
was, you just had to have complained that they weren't going to treat 
you right and get somebody to sign an affidavit that says that, yep, 
Joe complained about it to the Farm Service Administration employee at 
a public meeting somewhere, or a Member of Congress or there are a 
couple of other criteria there.
  And if Joe and Tom can agree to sign each other's affidavit, that's 
all the proof that's required. It's not proof of discrimination. It's 
an allegation that you believe you were discriminated against.

                              {time}  2030

  What comes out of the USDA? In Pigford I is this, and I read through 
form after form of these, if you are black and farmed or wanted to farm 
and you believed you were discriminated against and you were willing to 
say so on the application and you allege that you complained, even 
verbally, to an FSA employee, a Member of Congress, a couple other 
criteria, and if somebody else will attest in an

[[Page 18167]]

affidavit that you have actually filed that complaint, that's it. There 
is no check on whether they have been discriminated against. The 
consent decree doesn't allow for verification of discrimination. It 
just simply pays out what they consider to be a legitimate allegation 
of discrimination this way, an allegation of discrimination that meets 
those four criteria with someone who signed the affidavit, $50,000 
essentially automatic, $50,000 and because of the tax liability that 
comes with it, there's another $12,500, Madam Speaker, that check gets 
cut to the IRS so that that there's not a tax liability. And if you 
actually happen to be a farmer and you had engaged in programs with the 
USDA Farm Service Administration and you say you had farm loans, 
program loans, a 100 percent debt forgiveness was automatic that went 
along with the $50,000 payment, and another 25 percent of that, an 
additional 25 percent of the debt forgiveness was a check that was also 
written to the IRS so that the tax liability would be gone.
  And Judge Paul Friedman, who approved this consent decree, wrote in 
his opinion that the average settlement would not be $50,000, it would 
be $187,500 because a $50,000 check for the discrimination, or alleged 
discrimination, $12,500, or an additional 25 percent to the IRS, plus 
Judge Friedman concluded in his calculation that the average debt to 
the USDA was $100,000, that's forgiven along with another $25,000 check 
for 25 percent of the debt forgiveness to the IRS. So you add those 
numbers up--50, 1,250, 100,000, $187,000 was supposedly to be the 
average settlement in Pigford I. This all out of the pockets of the 
taxpayers, all without a shred of proof, just--well, I guess you could 
say a shred of proof because the signature on the affidavit from Joe's 
buddy Tom is the proof, that affidavit, and, yes, the application is 
filled out by the staff of a lawyer.
  Well, this door was opened up in a huge yawning way. And the lawyers 
went to work to begin to promote this across the South, black churches, 
town hall meetings, fish fries, they promoted it as your 40 acres and a 
mule. That seems a little bit appalling, and it sounds perhaps like 
it's a stretch, Madam Speaker, but in reading Judge Paul Friedman's 
decision, it starts out with these words, and I quote, the very first 
words in Judge Paul Friedman's decision, and I quote, ``40 acres and a 
mule.'' Forty acres and a mule.
  And he goes on to lament that all of the wrongs of slavery and 
segregation cannot be corrected in the largest civil rights class 
action suit and settlement in the history of America. But he sets about 
to try. And that's how he comes with the $50,000 plus the tax component 
of it and the $100,000 average debt waiver plus the $25,000 in IRS tax 
liability.
  He also addresses the issue of some of the groups in the black 
farmers wanted to have an exemption from the inheritance tax, the 
estate tax, because they believed that the money that would come from 
Pigford would be a large enough sum that they wouldn't want to pay 
estate tax on that when they died and passed it along to the next 
generation. Judge Friedman, I guess that would be one part of the good 
judgment, concluded that that was a bridge too far. It was too much to 
ask for. And so, Pigford I was supposedly settled and resolved.
  And before the House Judiciary Committee there was a new bill 
introduced for Pigford II by Bobby Scott of Virginia and others, and 
this would be the companion, although it may not be exactly verbatim, 
but essentially at least the de facto companion to the bill that was 
introduced by then United States Senator Barack Obama.
  Now figure this out, Madam Speaker. We have a very, very urban 
Senator, Barack Obama, who has decided he is going to run for 
President. And what does he do? He introduces legislation to create a 
whole new Pigford claim. Pigford I should have been settled. That's 
what the courts decided to do. Why would there be an action of a court? 
Why would there be a consent decree that essentially was a handshake 
signed off on by Dan Glickman and, well, true it was Dan Glickman and 
the black farmers organization, the Clinton administration, why would 
they sign off on all of that if it didn't end the Pigford issue? Yes, 
it was designed to end the Pigford claim. It was designed to package it 
up and put it behind us and move on.
  But it didn't work that way because Barack Obama introduced--there 
was a statute of limitations by the way. And the statute of limitations 
from the opening up of Pigford I until it closed, the consent decree 
was approved in April 14 of 1999, and they had 6 months to file all of 
their claims, which would have settled that in October, I've got 
October 12 of 1999, and there were over 22,000 that claimed they had 
been discriminated against and that they had complained about it, and 
they got in line for the $50,000, plus the debt forgiveness, plus the 
tax liability being paid up front along with the rest, to over 22,000 
almost 22,500 claims. And there must have been some paperwork glitches 
along the way, because over 14,000 of those were paid out, and that's 
the $1.05 billion, Madam Speaker.
  To pass this statute of limitations, the effort on the part of Barack 
Obama and Bobby Scott from Virginia here in this House whom I serve 
with, and they introduced legislation to open up Pigford again, to 
disregard the statute of limitations and allow for a new sign-up period 
because they had accumulated some 74,000, maybe only 72, but 74,000 new 
names of black farmers who believed they were discriminated against who 
were shut out of that process on Columbus Day in 1999.
  So we had hearings. They had a hearing on the bill in the House 
Judiciary Committee. And the hearing went along about like this, John 
Boyd, the president of the black farmers organization, which was formed 
to move forward and collect on Pigford, testified under oath before the 
House Judiciary Committee that there are 18,000 black farmers.
  Now, if you are listening, Madam Speaker, you will have already added 
up that there are 94,000 claims, if you are listening, Madam Speaker, 
94,000 claims. That would be 22,000 plus 72,000, 94,000 claims. John 
Boyd, the head of this, who has driven a tractor around Washington, 
D.C. and filed his claims and made this a high priority public issue, 
testified there were 18,000 black farmers. So how is it even if one 
would concede the point--and I do not for an instant, Madam Speaker, 
even when we concede the point that every black farmer was 
discriminated against, that would be 18,000 claims, not 94,000 claims. 
One could go back through the records and try to find the time we had 
the highest population of black farmers in modern record history, and 
we were able to go back into the 1970s and through some convoluted 
rationale put together some numbers that might justify twice that many, 
as high as 36,000. But John Boyd's under oath testimony was 18,000 
black farmers, 94,000 claims.
  How does that work? When I asked him the question under oath, he 
said, we have brothers, we have family who maybe they never saw the 
farm, maybe they moved off to the city, but they have a share. They 
have been discriminated against, too. Well, it seems to me to be a 
great big stretch, Madam Speaker, that we could have 18,000 black 
farmers and 94,000 claims.
  And nobody that is advocating for the funding for Pigford can get 
around this, they can't get their brain around this concept that how 
would it be that 100 percent of the black farmers were discriminated 
against?

                              {time}  2040

  The data that I have seen that shows the percentage of the 
populations in each of the counties where there were Pigford claims, 
the percentage of African Americans in those counties, the percentage 
of claims is directly proportional to the black population in those 
counties. Now, Madam Speaker, think about that. If the percentage of 
claims reflected the discrimination, then wouldn't it be that there 
would be a variance in that relationship between the black population 
and the black farmers, for one thing? You are not always going to have 
an equal between the black population and the black farmers. That is 
not going to be the same county to county. Some counties there is a 
higher percentage of farmers to black population, and some there would 
be less, but also, an equal distribution of claims for discrimination.

[[Page 18168]]

Madam Speaker, I can't seem to reconcile this idea that if you look at 
the data, the data would show that the discrimination was equal county 
by county by county in nearly every county all the way across the land 
in proportion to the black population. How could that possibly be? And 
I will say it can't possibly be because I know something about the 
culture within the FSA offices, Farm Service Administration offices. I 
dealt with them on a regular basis for nearly 30 years. Here is what I 
know:
  Each office, a county office, has its own culture. The culture of 
that office is sometimes shaped by the career employees that work 
behind the counter. A lot of times they are farmers' wives. They know 
nearly every farmer in the county. They know their land. They know what 
kind of crops they raise. They know their personalities, their 
idiosyncrasies, and they know how to take care of them and how to 
process them. And the director, the county director, is hired by the 
county board. The county board is elected by the people who participate 
in the farm programs in the county. So it is very much a reflection of 
the county.
  Now, it could well be, and I wouldn't take issue with a statement 
that there likely were counties that discriminated against black 
farmers as a matter of practice. I actually think that happened. But I 
don't believe that it happened in equal proportion in every county 
where there were black farmers, which is what the data, what the data 
would indicate.
  I believe that there could have been counties that discriminated 
against every black farmer in that county. And we know there are 
counties that had all black staff. It is hard to believe that they 
would have discriminated against every black farmer. And I am convinced 
there were counties that had county directors and staff people behind 
the counter where the culture there would not tolerate discrimination 
in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I believe, of all of these 
hundreds of counties that were involved, probably there is a full 
spectrum of culture within each of those counties. But there is no way 
I can accept the idea that they all discriminated equally county to 
county across the board. There is no way I can accept that because the 
cultures of these counties changed.
  But I will and I can get my mind around the idea that if you get 
enough lawyers that understand that there is a nice contingency fee for 
doing a little bit of work, that they can go out and promote the idea 
of every African American that they can convince that will fill out the 
forms that may have some form of a complaint or willing to file one 
without actually having a complaint, that they could gin this thing up, 
and we have the data that supports the idea that they did.
  So what we have is Pigford II, a Pigford II set up, Madam Speaker, at 
least by the words of our Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, by the 
2008 farm bill. So when he told me that I had voted for legislation 
that directed him to sit down with Eric Holder and John Boyd and 
negotiate a settlement for opening up Pigford a second time in a 
settlement, it was a pretty shocking thing for me to hear. I wasn't 
aware that I had been complicit in facilitating what I consider to be a 
high percentage of billions of dollars worth of fraud here in the 
United States.
  So I went back and I read the bill. I remember the discussion we had 
on the way in here with the chairman of the Agriculture Committee, 
Collin Peterson, when they slipped in at the last minute a hundred 
million dollar provision in the 2008 farm bill that was designed, it 
was designed to fund Pigford II. Now, remember, Pigford I was done. It 
was packaged up. It had a limitation equivalent to a statute of 
limitation, a closing date, which was October 12, 1999. There were 
those who said that they missed their chance to sign up. They thought 
there was 70,000-some out there who would do that. Bobby Scott and 
others introduced legislation in the House; it didn't go anywhere. 
Barack Obama, down this hallway, introduced legislation in the United 
States Senate; it didn't go anywhere. Congress never acted on a willful 
means to open up Pigford II. It didn't happen. Congress didn't act. 
Congress didn't appropriate. Congress didn't authorize. Congress 
accepted the consent decree that closed the filing October 12 of 1999. 
Even though Congress didn't act, not the House, not the Senate, it 
still was not enough to say no to some of the people who wanted to see 
this happen.
  The chairman of the House Ag Committee, Collin Peterson, said $100 
million will close up Pigford. We need to have that provision in the 
farm bill. I argued that was a placeholder for $1.3 billion. He argued 
back that I was completely wrong; $100 million would settle the account 
and be done with it. Now, $100 million is not loose change, Madam 
Speaker. It is a lot of money, but it is a whole lot less than $1.3 
billion, which I alleged would be the cost of him providing this 
placeholder in the 2008 farm bill. We sharply disagreed on that.
  And now I will read from the 2008 farm bill, Madam Speaker, what went 
into that bill, and this is the language that the Secretary of 
Agriculture says authorizes him to sit down with Eric Holder, the 
Attorney General, John Boyd, the head of the black farmers, and open up 
Pigford II for another $1.15 billion.
  The limitation under Pigford--and this is the 2008 farm bill, H.R. 
2419 for those who are paying attention, limitation--in general and 
subject to paragraph 2, all payments of debt relief shall be made 
exclusively from funds made available under this subsection. This 
subsection right here, Madam Speaker, item number 2, maximum amount. 
The total amount of payments and debt relief pursuant to actions 
commenced under section B shall not exceed $100 million.
  That is consistent with what the chairman of the Ag Committee told 
me: $100 million will cap the United States Government's liability to 
black farmers for discrimination by adding an additional $100 million 
to the previous $1.15 billion that had already been distributed, to 
clean up anything left out there, and here is the language that says 
so. This is intent language. It says it is the intent of Congress as to 
remedial nature of section, it is the intent of Congress that this 
section be liberally construed so as to effectuate its remedial purpose 
of giving a full determination on the merits of each Pigford claim 
previously denied that determination.
  That means if anybody was denied a determination, even by a statute 
of limitation that closed this on October 12, 1999, that this $100 
million was to be the sum total that would be used to settle this 
issue.
  The Secretary of Agriculture says this language gives him license to 
sit down with Eric Holder and John Boyd and put the American people in 
debt, because this is debt for another $1.15 billion, without having 
any proof of discrimination.
  Madam Speaker, I read this language and I point this out because that 
is why this chart is here. Subject paragraph 2: All payment or debt 
relief shall be made exclusively from funds made available under 
subsection (i). Maximum amount, $100 million. That is what was in the 
farm bill of 2008. That is what was represented to me by the chairman 
of the Ag Committee, by Chairman Peterson from Minnesota, who argued 
with me vociferously that I was wrong, that it wouldn't be $1.3 
billion; it would be $100 million.
  Now, Madam Speaker, I point out that we are looking tomorrow or the 
next day at $1.15 billion coming at us down the pipe through the Rules 
Committee, no amendments allowed, although I have got one up there in a 
request, but it is not going to be allowed. They have already told me, 
You're wasting paper and staff time. $100 million plus $1.15 billion is 
$1.25 billion.

                              {time}  2050

  My number was $1.3 billion, a lot closer than this $100 million 
here--a placeholder that opened the door. We have bureaucrats, Cabinet 
members, the Secretary of Agriculture, and the Attorney General of the 
United States that take it upon themselves to read license in this 
language to put the American people in further debt to a tune of

[[Page 18169]]

$1.15 billion and open this door up so that people that allege they 
believe they were discriminated against and allege that they filed a 
claim and have some friend that will sign an affidavit, will get a 
$50,000 check, and the IRS gets the tax liability of $12,500 on top of 
that. And by the way, if they have any USDA FSA debt, that is all 
forgiven, and the taxes are paid on it, and they are unhappy because 
they don't get a State tax waiver on these particular assets. This is 
what's happening.
  We've got to stand up at some point and say we're not going to pay 
slavery reparations in the United States Congress. That war has been 
fought. That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood--
it was paid for in the blood of a lot of Yankees especially--and there 
are no reparations for the blood that paid for the sin of slavery. No 
one is filing that claim. They're just filing claims because they think 
they can get away with it and because they believe they understand, 
probably appropriately, that not a lot of Members of Congress want to 
stand and fight that battle. Well, it's a matter of justice and equity. 
It's a matter of needing to look into this and of needing to bring the 
facts out.
  Madam Speaker, I want to make sure that the Members of this Congress 
know what they will be voting on tomorrow. I will be voting ``no.'' I 
will be voting ``no'' because there is no justice in this decision. 
This is something of which there is no court decision that enables it. 
There is no legal authorization that provides for it. There is no 
directive from Congress that directs the Secretary of Agriculture or 
the Attorney General to enter into any kind of an agreement. There is 
no court agreement. The court hasn't approved this. They sat around a 
table, wrote up a document and apparently shook hands. I don't even 
know if they shook hands.
  This document said that if Congress authorized or appropriated the 
money by March 31 of 2010, then they would have an agreement that would 
bind the black farmers and, if that day went by, then they wouldn't be 
bound. That's what has happened. If government can sit down and decide 
to pay reparations with money borrowed from the Chinese, this 
government is still in free fall. We've got to fix it, and we've got to 
arrest it.
  One of the people who is here to arrest the free fall in the United 
States Congress is my good friend, the gentlelady from Minnesota, who 
can withstand anything they throw at her, Michele Bachmann, to whom I 
would yield as much time as she may consume.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. I want to thank the gentleman from Iowa, Steve King.
  It was some months ago when Steve King had first told me about the 
situation with Pigford. He has been investigating and looking into this 
matter for probably about 3 years now. He is very interestingly 
situated by having a seat on both the Judiciary Committee and the 
Agriculture Committee, and both of those committees have something to 
do with this case.
  I want to go back to basics for just a moment, if I can, because, as 
Congressman King was giving me details about this case, on every level, 
it just didn't add up. He had talked a little bit about the reparations 
angle, and that, of course, was an opinion that was written by Judge 
Friedman in the very first class certification case with Pigford, 
Pigford I. That was about $1 billion of tax money that went out to the 
claimants.
  This is now a situation called Pigford II. As Congressman King 
rightly said, there is no judgment. This is simply something negotiated 
around a table with, I believe, Attorney General Eric Holder and, I 
believe, with Tom Vilsack, Ag Secretary. They got together and came up 
with an agreement. They came up with this settlement, but here is part 
of the problem.
  I am a former Federal tax litigation attorney, Madam Speaker. In that 
capacity, when I was working as a Federal tax lawyer, we had to refer 
to something as our standard of measurement. We would use the Bureau of 
Labor Statistics. Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 
the years in question, the maximum number of black farmers in the 
entire period for which we were talking about giving people money for 
alleged discrimination claims was about 33,000 black farmers. Now, 
there is dispute that even that number is egregiously high, 33,000. 
Well, in the Pigford I settlement, there has already been $1 billion 
that has been paid out. The estimate is something like 15,000 to 18,000 
claims that have already been paid out.
  So here is the situation: Under Pigford II, we now have new claimants 
who have come to the fore who have said they want to have money, too. 
Well, just think. If the entire universe of black farmers is 33,000, 
today we have 94,000 claimants asking for money in order to be made 
whole.
  How does this make sense? If you have a total universe of 33,000 
black farmers, how can you possibly have 94,000 claimants?
  You'd have to presume that every black farmer in the United States 
applied for a loan to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's almost 
statistically impossible. Then you'd have to assume that every black 
farmer who applied for a loan qualified for that loan. That would also 
be a statistical improbability. Then you'd have to assume that every 
black farmer in the United States who applied for a loan was qualified 
and that they were turned down for their loans. As to every single 
black farmer, not one would have been given a loan. Then you'd have to 
presume that every single black farmer in the country applied for a 
loan, that they qualified and that they were turned down. Then you'd 
also have to assume that every one of them was turned down because they 
were discriminated against.
  This is unbelievable. Even if you believe all of that, we still have 
60,000 too many claimants than there were black farmers. The numbers 
just bespeak obvious fraud in this situation. So the taxpayers are 
supposed to pay out another $1.15 billion? It doesn't make sense.
  Remember, what we would have to talk about is that every black farmer 
in the United States would have had to apply for a loan and would have 
had to been turned down because of obvious discrimination.
  What's even more bizarre is that after all of this terrible 
discrimination that has been alleged, after the $1 billion that has 
been paid out and after the $1.15 billion that Speaker Pelosi wants to 
pay out this week--after all that and after all of this discrimination 
at the USDA, there isn't even one employee who has been fired, who has 
been suspended, who has paid a fine or who has been reprimanded. We 
can't find evidence of even one. In fact, just the opposite is true.
  There are whistleblowers who have come forward from the department 
who have been willing to testify privately that there is obvious fraud 
that's going on right now. So it really begs the question: Why have the 
settlement? Why pay out 94,000 claimants when there is only a total 
universe of maybe 33,000 black farmers? Why is that? What's going on?
  In an article that just came out last week in the Associated Press, 
the reporter wrote that, once this claim is satisfied of $1.15 billion 
for Pigford II, the next claimants are already in the queue. They're 
the Hispanic farmers who allege they've been discriminated against, and 
they're the women farmers who allege they've been discriminated 
against. If that's the case, why is the United States Department of 
Agriculture even allowed to be in business anymore if they have this 
blatant level of bigotry and discrimination going on? Why haven't they 
been fired?
  I think what we need to have--and I believe that this is something in 
the future that Congress needs to do because it's certainly not 
happening today, Madam Speaker, under the headship of Speaker Nancy 
Pelosi. What we need to have is a very thorough review of every single 
claim that's going out the door, because these payments are going out 
in the form of $50,000 payments per claimant, tax free.

                              {time}  2100

  So not only do they not pay the taxes, we the taxpayers are paying 
the

[[Page 18170]]

taxes for the claimants. We're paying a payment of $12,500 to the IRS 
on behalf of each claimant. So the claimant will get $50,000 tax free, 
and we the taxpayers will even pay their tax bill for them. And what's 
worse, we will even wipe off the books any outstanding loans that they 
have on their farm property. Everybody's going to want to know where to 
go to sign up for this deal. Who wouldn't want to do that? You have 
farmers all across the country right now that are trying to make ends 
meet, and meanwhile they have to watch this spectacle go on at the 
USDA.
  Every single claimant needs to be fully investigated. Not one check 
should go out the door if it's not warranted. No one disagrees that if 
the USDA did something wrong and if they acted in a discriminatory 
manner, the people should be allowed to be made whole. Everyone agrees. 
But I would be the first person to stand on this floor of the House of 
Representatives and say if that is the case, then each of these USDA 
employees should be, at minimum--at minimum--written up in their 
personnel file, reprimanded, fined, and most likely fired if they're 
causing the taxpayers to have to pay out what would add up to be over 
$2 billion. We are here talking about, in these weeks, what can we do 
to cut the budget. I think this is the perfect place to start here in 
Pigford when we're paying out 94,000 claimants when there is a total 
universe of 33,000.
  I want to thank my dear colleague from Iowa, Representative Steve 
King, for being on this issue and dogging this issue for 3 years. And 
now here we are coming to the climax. We are about to see another $1.15 
billion about to go out the door, $1.15 billion that we don't have, 
which my colleague rightly said we will have to go to China and borrow 
and our children will have to get second and third jobs to pay back. 
This is just flat out wrong. Can we say it? Can we be gutsy enough on 
the floor of this House of Representatives to say this is pure and 
complete fraud that is about to be voted on this week. It's wrong, and 
it's got to stop.
  And I want to encourage any of my colleagues on either side of the 
aisle, vote ``no'' on this bill. I will be voting ``no.'' 
Representative King said he will be voting ``no'' because this will be 
a vote that I guarantee will haunt Members of Congress in the future if 
they vote ``yes'' because of the obvious fraud that will very soon be 
discovered and played out for the American people to see.
  I yield to my distinguished colleague from Iowa.
  Mr. KING of Iowa. Reclaiming my time and thanking the gentlelady from 
Minnesota for coming to the floor to add to this discussion, I happened 
to have clicked on YouTube on the Internet, I did a little search today 
because I wanted to see what I could find on Timothy Pigford, who is 
the lead plaintiff in Pigford Farms v. the USDA. It is a video of 
Timothy Pigford sitting there telling his story, but then he goes on to 
say that he's hopeful that, first, that they all get paid; second, that 
it lays the foundation so that the Hispanics, the Native Americans and 
the women farmers all get paid, too.
  So when I listen to that I think, what is the motive for this? Do you 
really believe that there isn't any place in America where people who 
are listed in his list of minorities get a fair shake? Not one place, 
not one county, not one FSA director, not one staff that sits behind 
the counter and says this is the right thing to do, we're going to 
treat everybody as if they're equal in our eyes just like we're all 
equal under the eyes of God? Doesn't that happen in one single county 
in America somewhere? They would deny it, Madam Speaker. They would 
deny that Americans can be nondiscriminating and understand this equal 
opportunity and equal justice under the law concept. And to have this 
kind of pressing that comes on from Timothy Pigford and a number of the 
other personalities involved here, this system--and there are a good 
number of African American farmers that filed their complaints, they 
complain that it has distorted their reputation. They may have a 
legitimate claim that wasn't settled adequately, and because this has 
been a full court press at all on, pushed by lawyers in bow ties from 
the Northeast and sold in the South and marketed as your 40 acres and a 
mule, this has damaged the legitimate black farmers.
  I can't think of a more honorable profession than raising food out of 
this soil. I can't think of a more honorable profession than sometimes 
bending over and getting dirty and being out in the weather--in all 
kinds of weather, the summer and winter, rain and storm, out there 
having your roots go into the soil. Nothing makes you more rooted to 
America than being rooted in the soil. And I applaud every farmer, 
black or white or Native American or women or Hispanics, whatever they 
might be. It's a hard way to make a living, but there is a certain 
honor and glory to it that can't be replicated anyplace else. It builds 
character and it builds honor, and they are being besmirched by this 
broader effort here.
  We need to say ``no'' tomorrow to the Pigford Farms funding that's 
coming, ``no'' because it wasn't authorized by the United States 
Congress. There wasn't even a head fake--to use something that might be 
the President's language--from Congress that said Secretary of 
Agriculture and the Attorney General, why don't you see if you can sit 
down with the head of the black farmers who formed the organization for 
the purposes of pressing the taxpayers for money--I don't think in the 
beginning he really thought we were going to borrow it all from the 
Chinese, but there is no directive on the part of Congress. Congress 
said, even though I disagreed with it, that $100 million would cap 
this, it puts an end to it, and anybody that didn't have their case 
resolved in Pigford I would be resolved here under the 2008 farm bill. 
But Tom Vilsack took license and sat down with Eric Holder, and they're 
poised tomorrow to stick the taxpayers for another $1.15 billion, Madam 
Speaker. And it's time the American people said enough. This election 
was about debt and deficit and jobs and the economy, and we have to 
have the will to say ``no'' and draw a bright line. And there isn't 
guilt on the part of this country that should cause us--it can't be 
assuaged anyway by borrowing money and paying out people that don't 
have it coming. We want to make sure we make those people whole who 
were discriminated against.
  I want to look into this deeply. I want to follow the money. I want 
to track and sort the applications, put them all on a big spreadsheet 
and see what the data indicates. And I think we will find that there is 
a massive amount of fraud. And we may lose this vote tomorrow, Madam 
Speaker, we may lose it. And if we lose this vote tomorrow, it still 
calls upon us to shed sunlight on this issue so the American people 
know what happened so that we don't do it again, so that we don't queue 
this up to go down the list of the other minorities--the Hispanics, the 
women, the Native Americans, and so on.
  So I come to speak of the Pigford Farms issue, which I am completely 
convinced has far more fraud in it than it has legitimate claims, and 
that the American people deserve equal justice under the law, and if 
they have a legitimate claim it should be able to withstand the 
scrutiny.
  I stand in opposition to the funding of Pigford II and the people 
that perpetrated it, Madam Speaker.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________