PA Votes Tomorrow to Eliminate All Funding for Civil Legal Services
A brief, but very important update because I’m smack in the middle of finals.
LG contributor Kim received the following email from the PA Bar Association a few minutes ago, which I thought would be of interest to LG readers:
The Pennsylvania Senate introduced SB 850 as their proposed 2009-2010 state budget on Friday, May 1st. That legislation is poised to be voted on, and adopted, by the Senate tomorrow, Wednesday, May 6th. SB 850 eliminates all state funding (all $3,172,000 of the state’s appropriation) for civil legal services. Access to justice is a major concern to the members of the PA Bar Association. The reduction of funding for legal services at a time of substantially increased need due to current, severe economic recession is remarkable.
Please call your state senator immediately. Implore him/her to restore the state appropriation for civil legal services. Tell him/her that access to justice for the poorest among us is not an appropriate “bargaining chip” for budget negotiation.
I’m not sure to what extent, if at all, services like MidPenn would be affected by this cut, but they do good work and it would be a shame to see them close as a result of this budget proposal. I shouldn’t even have to mention the fact that this comes at an exceptionally inopportune time given the current state of the economy.
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Oregon did the same a few years back – definitely affected the Public Defenders, but did not really have the same effect on the DAs around the state (shocking, I know). Fortunately, it was only for a few months, not the entire year. Good luck with this – hope the legislature quickly realizes that criminals cannot be prosecuted unless they’re defended.
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