MediaWatch: May 1990
Table of Contents:
CBS Slams Conservatives as 'Anti-Poor'
LAUDING THE LEGAL LEFT
Reporters usually press government agencies to perform their intended mission. Sometimes, however, they help agencies press their critics instead. Case in point: Bob McNamara's April 9 CBS Evening News report on the Legal Services Corporation. "Legal aid for the poor is on hold," McNamara began. "The Legal Services Corporation funds 325 local offices to do the legal work of America's poor. But in the '80s came efforts to abolish Legal Services...Today, local offices are surviving on 40 percent less in real dollars than ten years ago, a total budget not much more than the cost of a single B-1 bomber."
McNamara's elaboration of the LSC workload was poetic: "They call for help in custody cases, to stop an eviction, or keep the lights on. But the lawyers of last resort have seen the budget cuts take a toll....the human face of it is Amanda's. A custody case Legal Aid has no time to help her mother fight....It's the face of a tenant who fears eviction from her HUD-subsidized apartment...And it's the face of a woman, wanting to adopt an orphaned girl she's caring for, but Legal Aid is swamped...Today, regional Legal Aid director meetings are gatherings of the battle-weary, full of talk of witch hunts and politically motivated audits directed from Washington, about new laws against defending illegal aliens and farm workers."
If McNamara would have pursued an opposing view, he might have heard that eviction and child custody matters are going unaided because LSC lawyers have been busy filing political suits: defending Central America protesters sending convoys to the Sandinistas, gays seeking rent control protections in New York City, and liberal and minority groups trying to target redistricting to their advantage. Last year's Stenholm-McCollum reform bill would have mandated that LSC spend a certain percentage of its time and resources handling its real mission of service to the poor instead of service to the Left. These are the "witch hunts" and "politically motivated audits" of McNamara's imagination.
When McNamara finally noted "what irks conservatives most is that government money might be funding a liberal agenda," he discredited the idea by putting on Thomas Smegal, a liberal former LSC board member. "There was just this view," Smegal explained, "that somehow or other, taxpayers should not bear the price of lawyer fees to obtain equal access to justice." McNamara then concluded: "In a climate when anti-poverty has at times meant anti-poor, perhaps those needing help should feel fortunate the phones are answered at all."
