Word: oeo
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...young lawyers who run the OEO Legal Services Program see themselves as ombudsmen for the poor. As such, they do more than represent individual indigents in minor court actions. They also sue state and local governments on behalf of welfare recipients, migrant workers and other large groups of poor people. The growing success of such broad test cases may be measured by the opposition that has surfaced in the U.S. Senate...
...object to the political involvement of a federally funded organization," said Senator George Murphy of California. In the same vein, Florida Senator Edward Gurney denounced OEO lawyers for "agitation." Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona accused them of "inciting trouble" on the Navajo reservation in the West...
After that, by a vote of 45 to 40, the Senate passed a surprise amendment that Murphy tacked on to a poverty-program bill to give governors a veto over individual budget items in OEO Legal Services programs. Previously, a governor could veto the appropriation for an entire program in his state-but the OEO Director could override his veto.* "This is a disastrous piece of legislation," protested Alfred Feinberg, an OEO lawyer who heads an association called PLEA (Poverty Lawyers for Effective Advocacy). "If ultimately passed by the House, it will destroy OEO Legal Services...
...Senate objections, it is not uncommon for attorneys on the federal payroll to sue state and local governments. The Justice Department has initiated scores of such suits in civil rights matters. The OEO statute does not specifically mention this power, but poverty lawyers have assumed it-and could hardly succeed without it. "The problems of the poor," explains John Ferren, a teacher at Harvard Law School, "are mainly with Government agencies." The American Bar Association has also attacked the Murphy amendment as "oppressive interference with the freedom of the lawyer and the citizen...
Many national legal groups, including the American Bar Association, The National Legal Aid and Defender Association, and the Poverty Lawyers for Effective Advocacy have made public statements opposing the Murphy amendment. Donald Rumsfeld. present OEO director has also publicly opposed the amendment and has said he will work against i? in the House...