CQ Weekly
FY 04 Budget Outlook; Legal Services Corporation
Saturday, February 8, 2003
The Legal Services Corp. (LSC), a quasi-governmental agency that
provides legal aid for the poor, would receive $329 million in
fiscal 2004 under President Bush's proposal - the same amount
requested in 2003 and approved for 2002 and 2001.
If approved, the hold-the-line request for LSC means its budget
would erode with inflation for another year, but it could be worse
for the organization: Many conservatives fought for years to do
away with the LSC altogether, saying legal services attorneys were
spending too much time fighting for liberal causes or pursuing
politically charged cases against the government instead of
representing the needy. Opposition to the organization has cooled
since 1996, when Congress approved restrictions (PL 104-134) on the
sorts of cases federally funded legal aid attorneys can take. (1996
Almanac, p. 5-36)
Republicans cut the organization's budget deeply in 1996, but
its funding has recovered slowly. Last month, in the omnibus
spending bill for fiscal 2003, the Senate added a onetime increase
of $19 million, which, if approved in the final version, would
bring the LSC budget to $348 million. The money would go to help
states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that lost money when the
organization redistributed its funding based on census counts made
in 2000 of poor households.
If the extra money survives a conference with the House and
makes it to the president's desk, LSC supporters may try to include
it in the organization's fiscal 2004 funding.
The federal government began funding some programs to provide
legal assistance to the poor in the late 1960s; the Legal Services
Corporation was created in 1974 (PL 93-355). LSC gives nearly all
its money to state and local agencies, which provide civil legal
assistance to those whose income is less than 125 percent of the
federal poverty level - $11,075 a year for an individual and
$22,625 for a family of four. Funding for legal services goes to
defend needy clients in domestic violence cases, custody cases and
other such matters, according to LSC.
Since 1996, lawyers who receive money from Legal Services have
been prohibited from such activities as lobbying legislatures,
filing class-action suits, participating in political
demonstrations or strikes, pursuing abortion-related litigation,
representing illegal aliens or prisoners, or defending public
housing tenants evicted because they were charged with selling
drugs
