House-Senate Conference Committee Votes $300 Million for LSC
The House-Senate Conference Committee voted for a Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill which included $300 million for Legal Services Corporation for Fiscal Year 2000. The House passed the measure on Wednesday, October 20.
LSC had sought $340 million but the possibility of any increase
disappeared when Congress learned that LSC officials had failed to tell Congress
that the case totals claimed by Legal Services programs were found to be false
and wildly inflated.
The revelation of the bogus case statistics occurred at
LSC’s appropriations hearing on March 3, 1999 when Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA-5) used
information provided by a whistle blower to expose the falsified case
statistics.
A nationwide Associated Press article by reporter Karen Gullo in April exposed further details of the scandal. Majority Leader Dick Armey and Congressmen Dan Burton, Charles Taylor, Dan Miller and Tom Latham requested a GAO investigation. The GAO found serious case reporting problems in each of the five major programs they investigated and also determined that LSC’s corrective action was inadequate to solve the problem.
Rep. George Gekas of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law held hearings on September 29, 1998 to further investigate the controversial case statistics padding issue.
Last year Congress voted LSC a $17 million increase (from $283 million in 1998 to $300 million for 1999), the first increase in two years. The American Bar Association, liberal activist groups and legal services proponents all hoped that the increase was a sign that LSC was back in the good graces of Congress. The case counting scandal also cost LSC votes on the House floor where the August 4, 1999 vote on LSC had 13 Republicans who had previously voted for increased funding voting to oppose an increase this year. Also, of the nine freshmen Republicans who replaced LSC supporters who retired or were defeated last year, seven voted against the LSC funding increase.
LSAP Recent Developments Index