Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
The New
York Times
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October 7, 2000, Saturday, Late Edition -
Final
SECTION: Section A; Page 14; Column 1;
Editorial Desk
LENGTH: 393 words
HEADLINE: In Defense of Free Speech
BODY:
Four years ago, facing the very real prospect
that a hostile Republican Congress would put it out of business, the federal
Legal Services Corporation agreed to accept a set of harsh
restrictions on the sort of work that lawyers supported by the program could
perform on behalf of their poor clients. That fateful bargain gave rise to an
awkward showdown in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as lawyers for the
corporation and the Clinton administration tried to defend one of the more
pernicious elements of the G.O.P.'s assault. That was the restriction limiting
the kinds of arguments that Legal Services lawyers can make on behalf of welfare
clients.
Under the provision, poverty lawyers whose offices receive
federal money may seek benefits on behalf of their clients, but are barred from
bringing actions seeking to "amend or otherwise challenge" the regulation or
statute that prevents their clients from obtaining benefits. A year ago, a
federal appeals court in New York properly invalidated the provision on grounds
that its attempt to stifle criticism of government policy amounted to "viewpoint
discrimination" by the government, impermissible under the First Amendment. The
administration argued that Congress had broad leeway to decide what policies and
programs it would promote, citing a misguided 1991 Supreme Court decision that
upheld a ban on abortion counseling by family planning clinics that received
federal money. But Justice Anthony Kennedy was rightly troubled. Challenging a
government policy in court, he said, is "the paradigm of free speech, a petition
to the government." Similarly, Justice David Souter suggested that by silencing
disagreement with government policy, Congress had struck at "the molten core" of
the First Amendment.
Apart from the important free-speech issue, the
justices -- lawyers themselves, after all -- seemed concerned by the difficulty
of having to represent a low-income client with key arguments foreclosed. The
restriction, said Prof. Burt Neuborne of New York University Law School, the
lawyer for the plaintiffs, is "a core interference with what attorneys
ordinarily do for clients."
Congress trampled on free speech and the
principle of equal justice under law when it sought to muzzle Legal Services
lawyers, and the court's ultimate ruling should mince no words in saying so.
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LOAD-DATE: October 7, 2000
