Some people underestimate Richard Nixon’s legacy. Some of the most progressive social programs came during his administration. Legal Aid was one of these achievements. Since that time, the Legal Services Corporation has been phenomenally successful, to the limited extent of its funding. Unfortunately, funding for the LSC has been minimalistic since the 80s. Reagan came into office and slashed that commy program for the do-gooder lawyer types. Of course, that just left judges to deal with parties who were ill-equipped to handle the issues in front of them.
However, not all California Republicans are so naive. One example is the Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court, Ronald M. George. George has said that he would like the state to begin a pilot program to provide legal services to the indigent for a broad range of cases. Check over the flip.
California’s top judge said Tuesday that he wants the state to provide lawyers for the poor in civil cases such as child custody disputes and evictions in which people often have to represent themselves.
Chief Justice Ronald George said he will ask Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to test the idea by funding a pilot project in three counties — one small, one medium-size and one large — to provide attorneys for low-income litigants in a limited category of cases, including family law and housing, in which important individual rights are at stake. He didn’t identify the counties.(SF Chron 12/19/06)
Dave Jones (D-Sacto), is preparing to introduce legislation authorizing the pilot program and funding it. The initial cost estimates are around $20 million for the pilot program will be difficult to attain with the $3.5 billion deficit (for which Arnold Schwarzenegger has no plan), but this would be $20 million well spent. You see, properly and swiftly settled disputes save us all money. In fact, the courts end up wasting so much time trying to figure out what’s going on in these pro se cases that the $20 million will likely be recovered through more prompt decisions and less over time, etc.
This is a great idea, and I applaud both Jones and George for their advocacy in this area. Hey Assemblyman Jones, that’s 2 good bills for you. Keep up the good work.
This probably should have been a Calitics Quickie, but I wanted to get this out on the RSS feed. We don’t often pay much attention to the Judiciary here, except when there is a big case. However, the Judiciary is strapped, overworked, and in constant danger of losing even more funds. Because the Judiciary runs on funds that are somewhat discretionary, it hasn’t been fully funded for quite a few years.