Copyright 1999 The Seattle Times Company
The
Seattle Times
July 26, 1999, Monday Final Edition
SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1
LENGTH: 1761 words
HEADLINE:
SEATTLEITE ACCUSED OF DECEIVING CONGRESS
BYLINE: DANNY
WESTNEAT; SEATTLE TIMES WASHINGTON BUREAU
DATELINE:
WASHINGTON
BODY:
CONSERVATIVES say John McKay's
agency can't account for its money. McKay says they can't accept that helping
the poor is a conservative core value.
WASHINGTON - Seattle
lawyer John McKay is trying to soothe the lunchtime crowd at the Heritage
Foundation, one of the most conservative groups in the capital. The head of the
national legal-aid-for-the-poor program is telling his audience that he's a
Heritage type of guy: a champion of small government, a loyal Republican, a
patron of George Bush and Sen. Slade Gorton. He doesn't say it this day, but
he's also anti-abortion.
The crowd of tax cutters and young
conservatives listens politely. Then it gets ugly. One man accuses McKay of
fraud. A foundation researcher says McKay's agency is a waste of money. A summer
intern confronts McKay on his way out of the auditorium: "How can you call
yourself a Republican?"
McKay briefly tries to explain but gives up in
disgust. "You better get over this ridiculous idea that helping poor people
somehow makes you a liberal softie," he shoots back.
When McKay, 43,
left his corporate office on the 70th floor of the Columbia Seafirst Center two
years ago to take over the Legal Services Corp., he knew it
would be a contentious job. The $ 300 million-a-year nonprofit agency, formed by
Congress 25 years ago to give civil legal help to people who can't afford it,
has long been the target of conservatives who see it as liberal social advocacy
in disguise.
As he enters his final year, even McKay's harshest critics
say he has almost single-handedly saved the program from elimination. He has
been masterful at convincing skeptical Republicans that his agency is part of
the justice system, not the welfare state.
But a new controversy is
threatening to undermine those successes. A series of audits has found that
Legal Services has not helped as many people as Congress had been led to
believe. McKay and other Legal Services officials may have exaggerated the
agency's caseload by anywhere from 10 to 30 percent.
They are
ripping him apart'
The admission has opened McKay to charges that he
deceived Congress, a matter he says is "explosive" because his agency is
dependent on taxpayer financing. Last week, House Majority Leader Dick Armey,
R-Texas, accused the agency of hiding the truth, and a House subcommittee
proposed to cut the Legal Services budget in half.
"McKay had done a
fantastic job, especially of getting the Republicans on board," said Ken Boehm,
former general counsel at Legal Services but now the chief critic of the
program. "But this is a major mistake. They are ripping him apart right now.
"The worst thing you can do around here is not be straight with
Congress."
When the news broke earlier this year that Legal Services had
overstated the number of cases it handles by 200,000 or more, McKay got a phone
call from his oldest brother in Seattle.
"What the hell are you doing
back there?" the brother said.
This might be chalked up to typical
brotherly ribbing - except that the views of McKay's brother carry unusual
authority, as he is Mike McKay, former U.S. attorney for Seattle under President
Bush.
"He gave it to me pretty good, but that's sort of the McKay way,"
John McKay said.
Growing up with 11 brothers and sisters on Seattle's
Capitol Hill, McKay said his parents led dinner conversation using the Socratic
method, calling on kids to report on issues of the day or argue a particular
point.
This "McKay way" has been a hallmark of his tenure as president
of Legal Services.
He has lobbied Congress aggressively, challenging
critics with a confrontational, unconventional style. First he rolls out his
conservative credentials, then tells Republicans they are discarding their core
belief system if they vote to eliminate the program.
"It's rock-bottom
conservative philosophy that the country must have a strong justice system, and
that everyone gets access to it," he says.
Some of the strongest jibes
have come from legal-aid lawyers, angry that he would not support them taking
cases that had a discernible liberal agenda.
Not a bunch of
liberal lawyers'
McKay has been harsh when he feels legal-aid lawyers go
astray. After the Texas office sued to overturn the election of two local
Republican officials, McKay called the lawyers to Washington, D.C., and
threatened to deny them grant money if they did it again. Then he told them: "If
you want to do political cases, go join the ACLU."
"Every once in a
while," he says, "legal-aid lawyers do some thunderingly stupid things."
New rules passed by Congress in 1995 bar Legal Services attorneys from
filing class-action suits or representing prisoners or immigrants challenging
deportation. The attorneys also can't lobby state or federal governments and
can't take abortion cases.
"John has made a lot of progress with
Republicans simply by enforcing the new rules, although it hasn't always gone
over so well with some legal-aid folks," said Mike McKay, now in private
practice with his own firm, McKay & Chadwell.
John McKay was hired
precisely to bring a conservative slant to the agency. His successes are
impressive: Last year, he persuaded Rep. Steve Largent, R-Okla., a staunch
conservative, to switch his views and support the agency. He also talked the
Christian Coalition into taking legal aid off its budget "hit list" by showing
how many churches supported the program.
Fifty-seven House Republicans
supported Legal Services last year, joining all but three Democrats in the
highest vote support since Republicans took control of Congress in 1995. The
budget was increased from $ 283 million to $ 300 million - still well below the
$ 415 million in 1995, but a sign to McKay that Congress is no longer out for
blood.
"We have buried the idea of eliminating legal aid," he says. "I
think now they are convinced it's a nonpartisan goal, that we're not a bunch of
liberal lawyers sitting around scheming up class-action suits to try to transfer
wealth from the haves to the have-nots."
The attack du jour'
Not so fast, the critics say.
Last week, the Heritage Foundation
put out a new report calling on Congress to replace Legal Services with a grant
program to the states and more volunteering. The group also says Congress should
investigate a potential cover-up of the case-statistic problem.
The crux
of the issue is that McKay knew the agency's case statistics were overstated
when Congress voted last year to approve an increase in its budget. But he
didn't tell anybody on Capitol Hill until this spring, and then only after a
congressman dredged it out of him at a hearing.
To exacerbate McKay's
predicament, when first asked about the problem, he said it was no big deal.
"It's not significant in terms of overall cases and services we are
providing," McKay said in April. "If anything, we're underreporting the services
we provide."
Some very influential people disagreed.
Armey, the
House majority leader, called the overcounting "the grossest example of
Washington bureaucrats abusing hard-earned taxpayer money."
McKay is
apologetic, although he says he did not deceive Congress. He says the problem is
mostly one of semantics - that there is confusion in Legal Services offices
about what constitutes a "case," leading some offices to record phone referrals
as a completed case. He also says the offices are using an outdated data-entry
system.
"If you get $ 300 million a year and you can't adequately
describe what you're doing with it, then you're a pretty crappy agency," he
says. "I will fix this problem, and we will tell Congress exactly what they are
getting for their money."
He adds that people who have never believed in
the agency's mission - helping the poor - are using the reporting errors as the
"attack du jour." Then he uses a surprising tactic for an agency head: He rips
into a member of Congress.
"I'm very disappointed in Dick Armey because
he's just trying to pump this up and incite the usual lynch mob," he said. "If
there's a silver lining to any of this, at least this time they're not attacking
poor people."
Others say McKay is close to losing his credibility with
Congress.
"He's very smooth, but Republicans who are listening to him
try to defend the agency are hearing another Bill Clinton talking," said Ginny
Thomas, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a classmate of McKay's at
Creighton University Law School in Omaha, Neb.
"He talks about things
that grab your heart, but not your head. I like him a lot, but I have to say
this looks like deceiving Congress to me."
The highest form of
law'
McKay is a bit beleaguered these days, but it cheers him to recall
his history as a pro bono lawyer. Fresh out of law school, in his first week at
the Seattle firm Lane, Powell, Spears & Lubersky, McKay was introduced to
the idea that "the highest form of law" is helping poor people who have legal
problems.
He volunteered at the Pioneer Square office of what was then
called Evergreen Legal Services. Soon, a steady stream of people were coming to
see him: tenants evicted from apartments, women beaten by husbands, seniors
denied Social Security benefits.
"It's the soup-kitchen notion of public
service," he said.
In 1995, when he was at Cairncross & Hempelmann
representing corporate clients such as Nordstrom and the Seattle Seahawks, McKay
was named the state's Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year.
Ironically, since
McKay took over Legal Services, he has not given legal help to a single poor
person. He is consumed with lobbying members of Congress and watching over the
269 Legal Services offices in all 50 states that receive federal funding,
including the Northwest Justice Project in Washington state.
This year,
for relief from the brutal political battles, McKay gained admission to the
District of Columbia Bar so he can begin helping indigent clients again. He did
it, he said, because he feels he's losing touch with poor people and their legal
issues.
He has the same complaint about politicians.
"The debate
here has so little to do with what's actually happening in legal-aid offices all
over the country," he said.
Then he offers a McKay-style solution - one
that characteristically might not go over so well with his superiors in
Congress.
"I'd love to subpoena these people and force them to visit
legal services so they could see for themselves."
Danny
Westneat's phone-message number is 206-464-2772. His e-mail address is
dwestneat@seattletimes.com
GRAPHIC: PHOTO; 1) JOHN
MCKAY > 2) PATRICK D. WITTY: JOHN MCKAY, A SEATTLE NATIVE, IS HAVING A
CONFRONTATION WITH SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS AS PRESIDENT OF LEGAL
SERVICES CORP.
LOAD-DATE: July 27, 1999
