José E. Serrano: “here we go again. For the sixth year in a row, the FY 2001 Commerce-Justice bill includes only $141 million for the…”

“here we go again. For the sixth year in a row, the FY 2001 Commerce-Justice bill includes only $141 million for the Legal Services Corporation. This is $164 million below the fiscal year 2000 appropriation of $305 million and $199 million below the President's fiscal year 2001 request of $340 million. When it was first presented to the House in fiscal year 1996, $141 million represented one-third of the prior year's level. But it has since become a meaningless number. For each of the past 5 years, a floor amendment offered by the ranking member of the subcommittee and supported by a bipartisan majority has raised the funding level for the LSC to about $250 million by shifting funds within the bill. Action by the Senate and in conference has typically resulted in a more realistic, but still meager, final appropriation. However, as funding allocations for the bill have gotten increasingly tight, it has become much harder to find accounts to cut as offsets for the add-back for LSC. And by now, the $250 million level that the House has typically adopted is far short of the amount needed to provide needed legal assistance to the country's poor and disadvantaged.”