Saturday, December 12, 2009

Pigford and the Women

From a Government Executive post:
two key House members introduced legislation Thursday to establish a $4.6 billion compensation fund for female farmers who have been denied loans since 1981.
The article discusses Pigford and the other discrimination cases filed against FSA and USDA.  But there's no substantive discussion of the basis for the amount or any indication of what lawyers are involved.  (In the Pigford case there were allegations of misconduct by some of the lawyers.)

Updated:  See the press release on De Lauro's site for more details.  I refuse to use my dwindling brain cells to analyze the differences between De Lauro's process and Pigford but it looks as if it's the two track process again: one track for people who credibly claim to have applied for a loan, another track for people who can prove discrimination.  The first track gets $5,000 instead of the $50,000 for Pigford; the second gets an adjustable $109,000. 

One white male chauvinist legalistic remark:  there's no provision to prevent double-dipping by a black female  farmer (or, in the event, a Hispanic female or a Native American female farmer).

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