Copyright 2000 The Houston Chronicle Publishing Company
The Houston Chronicle
April 04, 2000, Tuesday 3 STAR EDITION
SECTION: A; Pg. 6
LENGTH:
743 words
HEADLINE: High court to hear case on
restricting lawyers for poor;
Lobbying for welfare reform at issue
SOURCE: Staff
BYLINE: STEVE
LASH, Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON
BODY:
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on
Monday agreed to decide if the U.S. government can bar federally funded lawyers
for poor people from lobbying against strict welfare laws without violating the
attorneys' constitutional right to free speech.
The court agreed to
consider the constitutionality of a federal law that bars Legal Services
Corp. attorneys, who use federal money to represent poor people, from
urging Congress and state legislators to relax restrictions on welfare benefits.
These attorneys say the law violates their First Amendment right to
speak freely on a major issue - welfare reform - and interferes with their
ability to vigorously represent their poor clients, who are often the victims of
welfare restrictions.
But the Clinton administration counters that the
law is valid because the government can legally restrict the political
activities of people who receive federal money. Under the statute, the lawyers
can still lobby lawmakers, just not while receiving federal money, the
administration adds. The justices are expected to hear arguments in the case
this fall or winter and render their decision by July 2001.
The
Legal Services Corp. receives federal money each year, which
the independent body then doles out to attorneys, organizations and governmental
agencies that provide legal assistance to poor people. This year the agency will
receive about $ 304 million in federal money.
Congress in 1996, as part
of a Republican-led effort to restrict the eligibility of welfare recipients,
passed legislation prohibiting lawyers receiving federal funds from lobbying in
"an effort to reform a federal or state welfare system."
Dwayne Bilton,
who administers the distribution of corporation funds in the greater Houston
area, said he hopes the Supreme Court strikes down the lobbying restriction. He
said his group's team of federally funded attorneys stopped pressing Texas
lawmakers to relax the state's welfare laws following enactment of the federal
statute.
"As practitioners of law for the poor and underprivileged, we
don't like to see these restrictions," said Bilton, who directs the
Houston-based Gulf Coast Legal Foundation. "We would like to see the Supreme
Court rule in favor of more and not less access" to lawmakers, he added.
The foundation, which covers 17 counties, will administer $ 4.8 million
in Legal Service Corp. money this year to help a potential
client base of about 600,000 indigent people, Bilton said. In a typical year,
the group's 40 lawyers will handle cases on behalf of about 8,000 people, he
said.
The case before the justices arose in 1997, when New York lawyers
who received corporation funds challenged the legal restriction as
unconstitutional.
The U.S. District Court for Eastern New York sided
with the government, saying that the lawyers can lobby all they want on their
own time with their own money.
But, on appeal, the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals ruled that the law's prohibition on lobbying violated the
lawyers' First Amendment right to "criticize government or advocate changes in
governmental policy." The Clinton administration then appealed to the Supreme
Court.
In another case, the justices declined to consider the
constitutionality of a state law, similar to one in Texas, that makes it easier
for neighbors and school officials to discover whether a convicted sexual
offender is in their midst.
The court refused without comment to hear
the appeal of a Tennessee man who challenged the state's requirement that he
register with law enforcement whenever he moves because of his prior conviction
for sexual battery.
Arthur Cutshall, who pleaded guilty in 1990 to
aggravated sexual battery of a 5-year-old relative, argued that Tennessee's
registration requirement amounted to an unconstitutional second punishment for
the same crime. He was released from prison in 1997.
Under Texas law,
local communities are required to be told by newspaper notice when a pedophile
is released. The local school superintendent is also required to be notified.
In addition, information from the Texas sex offender registry is
available by written request.
The Supreme Court's refusal to hear the
Tennessee case sets no binding legal precedent regarding the constitutionality
of so-called "Megan's laws," named for 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl
who was raped and killed in 1994 by a twice-convicted child molester who lived
in her neighborhood.
LOAD-DATE: April 5, 2000
