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Constitutional Law Keyed to Cohen
Legal Services Corporation v. Velazquez
Facts
The Legal Services Corporation (LSC) (D) is a nonprofit organization charged with allocating funds appropriated by Congress to local organizations who received grants to provide free legal assistance to clients too poor to afford such help otherwise. Section 504 (a)(16) of an appropriation s act passed in 1996 puts conditions to the use of such funds, in that LSC cannot fund any organization which provides legal representation to clients who wish to amend or pose any other type of challenge to the present welfare laws . This section was taken by the government to mean that grantee organizations should desist from continuing to represent clients in a case relating to welfare laws even if it becomes clear that the law may violate the constitution and so be challenged as invalid, well into the case. It is also taken to mean that the client’s lawyer may not challenge a state law as not agreeing with federal law, or that either a state or federal statute is against the constitution. Grantees are given the right to argue for correcting a factual determination or for proper reading and application of any term in a currently held welfare law. The LSC grantees were represented by lawyers who sued seeking declaratory relief, among other things, by invalidating the statute, as being a violation of the First Amendment. The district court decided against them, but this was reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for review.
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