Senate approves $4.6B for black farmers, Indians

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate has approved almost $4.6 billion to settle long-standing claims brought by American Indians and black farmers against the government.

The money has been held up for months in the Senate as Democrats and Republicans squabbled over how to pay for it. The two class action lawsuits were filed over a decade ago.

The settlements include almost $1.2 billion for black farmers who say they suffered discrimination at the hands of the Agriculture Department. Also, $3.4 billion would go to Indian landowners who claim they were swindled out of royalties by the Interior Department. The legislation was approved in the Senate by voice vote Friday and sent to the House.

Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe from Browning, Mont. and the lead plaintiff in the Indian case, said Friday that it took her breath away when she found out the Senate had passed the bill. She was feeling despondent after the chamber had tried and failed to pass the legislation many times and two people who would have been beneficiaries had died on her reservation this week.

"It's 17 below and the Blackfeet nation is feeling warm," she said. "I don't know if people understand or believe the agony you go through when one of the beneficiaries passes away without justice."

John Boyd, head of the National Black Farmers Association, said the passage of the black farmers' money is also long overdue. "Twenty-six years justice is in sight for our nation's black farmers," he said.

Lawmakers from both parties have said they support resolving the long-standing claims of discrimination and mistreatment by federal agencies. But the funding has been caught up in a fight over spending and deficits. Republicans repeatedly objected to the settlements when they were added on to larger pieces of legislation. But Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., satisfied conservative complaints by finding spending offsets to cover the cost.

The legislation also includes a one-year extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which gives grants to states to provide cash assistance and other services to the poor, and several American Indian water rights settlements in Arizona, Montana and New Mexico sought by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

In the Indian case, at least 300,000 Native Americans claim they were swindled out of royalties overseen by the Interior Department since 1887 for things like oil, gas, grazing and timber. The plaintiffs would share the settlement.

The Cobell lawsuit has dragged on for almost 15 years, with one judge in 2008 comparing it to the Charles Dickens' "Bleak House," which chronicles a never-ending legal suit. Using passages from that novel, U.S. District Judge James Robertson noted that the "suit has, in course of time, become so complicated" that "no two lawyers can talk about it for five minutes without coming to a total disagreement as to all the premises."

The Indian plaintiffs originally said they were owed $100 billion, but signaled they were willing to settle for less as the trial wore on. After more than 3,600 court filings and 80 court decisions, the two sides finally reached a settlement in December.

"Personally I still think we're owed a hundred billion dollars, but how long do you drag this thing out?" Cobell said Friday. "Do you drag it out until every beneficiary is dead? You just can't do that."

Cobell said she feels confident about passage in the House, where the two settlements already have passed twice as part of larger pieces of legislation.

For the black farmers, it is the second round of funding from a class-action lawsuit originally settled in 1999 over allegations of widespread discrimination by local Agriculture Department offices in awarding loans and other aid. It is known as the Pigford case, named after Timothy Pigford, a black farmer from North Carolina who was an original plaintiff.

The government already has paid out more than $1 billion to about 16,000 farmers, with most getting payments of about $50,000. The new money is intended for people—some estimates say 70,000 or 80,000—who were denied earlier payments because they missed deadlines for filing. The amount of money each would get depends on how many claims are successfully filed.

The bill passed Friday would be partially paid for by diverting dollars from a surplus in nutrition programs for women and children and by extending customs user fees.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said with the passage of the Cobell settlement: "This is a day that will be etched in our memories and our history books."

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said passage "marks a major milestone in USDA's efforts to turn the page on a sad chapter in our history."

Last month, the Agriculture Department offered American Indian farmers who say they were denied farm loans a $680 million settlement. Hispanic and women farmers also have cases pending against the department.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9JJG3D80&show_article=1

[lostinblue 1,989]

Success in Pigford II inevitably will serve as a catalyst for plaintiff victories in these other cases. And eligible beneficiaries are growing exponentially. Thanks to plaintiffs' litigators and Judge Friedman, about 80,000 black farmers are now eligible for compensation. That's a remarkable feat of recruitment given that the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture counted only 32,938 black-owned farms in all of the U.S.

How many people and how much money are we talking about? As of March 2, 2010, federally-appointed contract adjudicators had ruled on 22,549 Track A applications, approving 69 percent of them (www.pigfordmonitor.org/stats). Total relief in Pigford v. Vilsack and Brewington v. Vilsack (the nominal defendant being current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack) stood at a little over $1 billion. The $50,000 lump sum payouts accounted for about three-fourths.

There is good reason why so few plaintiffs have opted for Track B relief: They would have to produce hard evidence of discrimination. And the evidence was skimpy at best. Understand that the original complaint cited no specific cases of discrimination other than a reckless (and guilt-ridden) statement by Secretary Glickman that discrimination was rampant in his department. Pursuant to his Civil Rights Action Team's recommendations, Glickman ordered an immediate review of 956 backlogged discrimination complaints. The review found that in only five of these cases - less than 1 percent - was there evidence of even possible discrimination, a finding the department conveniently suppressed. Yet even though the USDA admitted no wrongdoing at its April 1999 settlement, as part of the agreement it had to spend nearly $500,000 in various media outlets advertising the availability of cash awards. Those outlets included Black Entertainment Television, TV Guide, Jet magazine, 27 general circulation newspapers and 115 black-owned newspapers. The word was out: Come and get it!

Appallingly, that wasn't the half of it. A claimant did not have to prove ownership of or even employment at a farm; any claim of being turned down for a loan, whether or not substantiated, could qualify as having "attempted to farm." That the Agriculture Department kept unsuccessful loan applications on file for only three years was an open invitation to fraud. Black "farmers" claiming acts of discrimination occurring prior to 1994 held the upper hand.

Indeed, many likely hadn't ever stepped on a farm. A review by an Oregon contractor, Poorman-Douglas, revealed that some claimants tried to certify young children as aggrieved parties. Husband-wife couples applied separately in hopes of double compensation for the same act. And a number of deceased persons "claimed" their reward, with surviving family and relatives filing on their behalf.

http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/08/lawyers-black-farmers-shake-down-taxpayers-agriculture-department-capitulates

[Sofiyya 1,687]

I worked on this case out of DC at its conception for Eloise and NARF. The government owed them big time for fraud and deception. It's past time for them to pay up.

[Danno 1,228]

Success in Pigford II inevitably will serve as a catalyst for plaintiff victories in these other cases. And eligible beneficiaries are growing exponentially. Thanks to plaintiffs' litigators and Judge Friedman, about 80,000 black farmers are now eligible for compensation. That's a remarkable feat of recruitment given that the 2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture counted only 32,938 black-owned farms in all of the U.S.

How many people and how much money are we talking about? As of March 2, 2010, federally-appointed contract adjudicators had ruled on 22,549 Track A applications, approving 69 percent of them (www.pigfordmonitor.org/stats). Total relief in Pigford v. Vilsack and Brewington v. Vilsack (the nominal defendant being current Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack) stood at a little over $1 billion. The $50,000 lump sum payouts accounted for about three-fourths.

There is good reason why so few plaintiffs have opted for Track B relief: They would have to produce hard evidence of discrimination. And the evidence was skimpy at best. Understand that the original complaint cited no specific cases of discrimination other than a reckless (and guilt-ridden) statement by Secretary Glickman that discrimination was rampant in his department. Pursuant to his Civil Rights Action Team's recommendations, Glickman ordered an immediate review of 956 backlogged discrimination complaints. The review found that in only five of these cases - less than 1 percent - was there evidence of even possible discrimination, a finding the department conveniently suppressed. Yet even though the USDA admitted no wrongdoing at its April 1999 settlement, as part of the agreement it had to spend nearly $500,000 in various media outlets advertising the availability of cash awards. Those outlets included Black Entertainment Television, TV Guide, Jet magazine, 27 general circulation newspapers and 115 black-owned newspapers. The word was out: Come and get it!

Appallingly, that wasn't the half of it. A claimant did not have to prove ownership of or even employment at a farm; any claim of being turned down for a loan, whether or not substantiated, could qualify as having "attempted to farm." That the Agriculture Department kept unsuccessful loan applications on file for only three years was an open invitation to fraud. Black "farmers" claiming acts of discrimination occurring prior to 1994 held the upper hand.

Indeed, many likely hadn't ever stepped on a farm. A review by an Oregon contractor, Poorman-Douglas, revealed that some claimants tried to certify young children as aggrieved parties. Husband-wife couples applied separately in hopes of double compensation for the same act. And a number of deceased persons "claimed" their reward, with surviving family and relatives filing on their behalf.

http://nlpc.org/stories/2010/03/08/lawyers-black-farmers-shake-down-taxpayers-agriculture-department-capitulates

When the investigations start up look for the spotlight to find it's way to this cash-givaway which the numbers alone scream "fraud".

[lostinblue 1,989]

When the investigations start up look for the spotlight to find it's way to this cash-givaway which the numbers alone scream "fraud".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud0aKEJCBqA

Just think of the mess we would be in if the lenders had denied all of these homeowners loans.....A class action lawsuit costing xxx trillions.The mortage situation we are in now is just a drop in the bucket compared to that.

Can a liberal explain this number?

2007 U.S. Census of Agriculture counted only 32,938 black-owned farms in all of the U.S.

about 80,000 black farmers are now eligible for compensation

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

Congress Should Investigate Pigford Before Funding It

by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

Too many elected officials are far too comfortable spending taxpayer dollars without knowing where that money will actually end up. This was proven once again by the Senate’s vote to fund the Pigford Settlements, even though serious claims of fraud exist.

In September, I joined my colleagues Congressmen Steve King (IA-05) and Bob Goodlatte (VA-06) to call for a full investigation into the Pigford Settlement Case. As a constant advocate for careful use of taxpayer dollars, I was concerned when I learned that this Settlement has 94,000 claims of discrimination, even though only approximately 33,000 black farmers exist in the United States.

I’m disappointed in the Senate’s decision to disregard these serious allegations and instead vote to spend away billions of taxpayer dollars.

http://biggovernment.com/mbachmann/2010/11/21/congress-should-investigate-pigford-before-funding-it/#more-198429

[Danno 1,228]

How does one even explain the math with a straight face?

A number of counties or districts did in fact treat some black farmers who applied unjustly.

How does that translate into claimants of 3X the number of ALL Black farmers in the whole country.

Isn't it also odd that all this money was paid out ... but not a single person who administered injustice, has been charged, fired or even reprimanded?