Rep. Issa Praises Obama Administration!!

The nether reaches of hell must be starting to freeze.

This FCW article reports this comment by Rep. Issa:

"The whole Recovery.gov effort has been a great success. I’m taking no positive shots at how they spent their money, because I don't think it created jobs. But it accounted for funding in a more transparent way than ever before, and did so on a small budget," Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), said at an event hosted by the Data Transparency Coalition on Sept. 10.

I have to admit I was skeptical of it, I haven't revisited the site since its early days, and I still suspect a subject-matter expert could punch holes in the data for her subject area.  But the fact remains, even if its reputation is a tad higher than it deserves, it does set an example for the future and there weren't many scandals related to the Recovery Act spending, once we got past the early glitches about the quality of data.    So at least one gold star for the Obama administration.

(Hmm, since I'm feeling devilish today, what's the odds of having a similar database for Pigford payments?)

Another Pigford II

From High Plains Journal

Based on the data given by the lawyers, about 55 percent of the claimants in the Pigford II case were successful in winning claims, Zippert said. This is slightly less than the 63 percent who prevailed in Pigford I, a surprise to Zippert. He had expected the success rate to reach more than 70 percent in Pigford II, in part because the claimants no longer had to identify a similarly situated white farmer who was not denied help by FSA.

Not Total Unanimity in the Pigford Camp?

Here's a Legal Times piece reporting the disposition of a suit filed by John Boyd and the National Black Farmers Association against two of the attorneys involved in the Pigford litigation.   They were trying to get paid by the lawyers for some of their work.  The court dismissed the suit.

Another Pigford II Article

This time from Shreveport, LA quoting John Boyd.

Pigford II Status--Nearing the End?

A quote from a status update on Pigford II:

"Sanders said that 17,800 of the Track "A" claimants had been successful and another 800 claims were still being reviewed to see if they were duplicates or multiple claims filed on the same farmland. The remaining claims were unsuccessful. Sanders said no Track "B" claims, for higher monetary damages, had been approved."

 I believe about 70,000 claims were originally filed under Pigford II, and about 33,000 were found to be unique.

FCIC, Fraud, and Pigford

Sen. Hagan of NC got an amendment to the farm bill passed, allowing some use of the crop insurance fund to look for fraud.  Her actions were inspired by the biggest crop insurance fraud yet discovered, located in eastern NC. (Not sure whether it was the biggest in money terms ($100 million), or in the numbers of people involved.  .  I was led to these articles:

• biggest crop insurance fraud
• Stokes

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think this is a reminder that fraud is an equal opportunity temptation.  Also a reminder that whenever there's a new program, or a steep increase in an old program, the incentive to defraud is raised, and bureaucrats would be well advised to increase their counter-measures.  

Pigford Lawyers Hire Lobbyists

That's the report from Politico.

John Boyd is not happy, asking very reasonably IMHO why they need lobbyists now? 

Seems to me both the Pigford I and II settlements are over, all except the shouting.  There might be a need for lobbyists in case a House committee wants to look into the role of the lawyers in crafting and administering the settlement.  But who can say?

Counter to NY Times on Pigford

The Federation of Southern Cooperatives has a response to the NYTimes article I linked to previously.

It's a more detailed response than others I've seen.  It ends with a repudiation of one of the figures mentioned in the Times article:

"The Network of Black Farm Groups and Advocates was created at the beginning of the Pigford lawsuit. Tom Burrell, mentioned in the April 26 New York Times article, was never a part of the Network. His Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association (BFFA) in Tennessee is not the same as the group in North Carolina. Burrell speaks for himself.

Thomas Burrell and his organization never served as representatives of class counsel in the Pigford settlement or the Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation (BFDL), known as Pigford II.

Burrell and his organization were not active in the Pigford claims process, and class

counsel in BFDL has not worked with him or his organization on claims nor accepted any claimshe or his organization might have prepared. In fact, class counsel had reported his activities tothe U.S. District Court in an effort to prevent him from spreading false information about theclaims process, and in opinions rendered on January 3, 2005 and September 6, 2005, DistrictCourt Judge Paul L. Friedman charged that Burrell had “given false hope to thousands of AfricanAmerican farmers.”

What Burrell has done, but which the article does not make clear, is hijack the claims

process for his own self interest. Burrell’s actions have been detrimental to the legitimate claimsprocess, yet the New York Times would have readers believe that those who oversaw the claimsprocess condoned his efforts to undermine the integrity of the process. This is blatantlyfalse. By indicating a connection between Burrell and the claims process, the New York Times is showing a grave disregard for the truth and seriously misleading the public.

NYTimes on Pigford, Garcia, etc.

The Times has a front page article, their big story for the day, on the course of the various discrimination class action suits against USDA/FSA.  The writer apparently talked to a number of career employees, and found a number of cases of fraud.  The politicians and the lawyers come across unfavorably.

GAO Report on Pigford

Here's the link.  And the two recommendations:

We are making the following two recommendations:
• To improve the internal control design, we recommend that the Claims Administrator establish and document procedures to provide reasonable assurance of identifying claimants who obtained prior judgments on their discrimination complaints in judicial or administrative forums, including reaching agreement with USDA on the Claims Administrator’s request that USDA check its records of judicial and administrative determinations.
• To help ensure that the design operates as intended to provide reasonable assurance of identifying and denying fraudulent or otherwise invalid claims, we recommend that the parties charged with carrying out the terms of the settlement agreement continue their efforts to fully and correctly implement the remainder of the internal control design, including measures to (1) identify duplicate claims and claims submitted on behalf of the same farming operation or the same class member and (2) verify timeliness
determinations.

On Not Recording What Doesn't Happen

Sarah Kliff has a post on a study of what happens when women are refused an abortion.  We have data on what happens when a woman gets an abortion, but bureaucracies aren't very good in recording what happens in the absence of action.  My example in support of that generalization: FmHa and ASCS and FSA rarely had records on people who were refused service, that was one of the problems which led to the way the Pigford suit was resolved. 

A bureaucracy is geared to act, and to document the actions.  Rejections often aren't documented, unless in case of an appeal.

John Boyd Speaks

In Washington Post's Magazine, here.

Gardens, Slaves, and Pigford

The NY Times has a long article about slaves, African-Americans, gardens, and vegetables.

I read it with interest, because I've toyed with the idea of writing on a similar subject, tied to the Pigford case.  A couple of points:

• some African-Americans run away from the land because farming means toil and drudgery (a sentiment which I share)
• heir property, as in the following:

"Perhaps Malva will feel inspired to water the garden next week, when Diana goes to Philadelphia for the annual slavery reparations conference. Along the way, she’ll also stop in Baltimore to ask her uncle to sign legal papers that would give her power of attorney to manage the land.

The farm, she explained, is heir property: it belongs to 19 relatives, across the nation. And almost nothing can get done without their written consent. This is a common dilemma on African-American farms, explained Dr. Bandele, who started his career with the Emergency Land Fund, a black farm and property preservation group.

One cousin neglects to pay his share of the property tax; in protest, another cousin refuses to pay. Ultimately, Dr. Bandele said, the property ends up in a forfeiture auction. Another black farm is lost."

Pigford Deadline Today

The final date for submitting papers for Pigford II is today, applicable only to those who filed late for Pigford I.

John W. Boyd's Loan Specialist

John Boyd is prominently associated with the Pigford lawsuit.  I just happened to notice there's a vacancy in Mecklenburg county for a supervisory farm loan specialist.  I also found it interesting that the town is Boydton.

Updates on Pigford II

Sustainable Ag has a post and links to a news release from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives on the progress of Pigford II.

African-American Farmers

Via the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, there's a scholarly study here which is available without restriction until July 16.  Worth reading.

Walmart and Pigford

The Supreme Court decided a case involving Walmart yesterday.  Ann Althouse has a summary of the case which is clearer than what I've seen or heard elsewhere.

I thought of Pigford.  

I wonder if it would have been recognized as a class action lawsuit if the Walmart case had been decided before Pigford.  To me, though not a lawyer, the cases seem similar.  In both a national organization is being sued for discrimination. In both cases there's some decision making done at the national level and some at the local (regional or store for Walmart, state or county for FSA).

If Walmart had been decided first, USDA/FSA could have argued that there was no national discriminatory policy in effect, therefore there was no "class" to file a class-action suit.  That would have required the aggrieved parties to file suits at the state or county level.

Of course, Congress could have stepped in, I guess.  They stepped in to extend the statute of limitations because Pigford hadn't been filed timely so I guess they could have waived their wand and said that black farmers/potential farmers were a class.

Of course, if Walmart had been raised back in the early 90's, Sandra Day O'Connor would have been on the Court and so the verdict likely would have been 5-4 the other way.  Does the different result yesterday reflect 8 years of Republican Presidents or a change in the national climate of opinion, or maybe just chance? 

Pigford Is an Urban Legend?

Snopes.com has a post on Pigford, linking to the Congressional Research Service's report.

Announcement on Women/Hispanic Claims of Discrimination

Vilsack announcement.  Ironically, Firefox tells me the http://www.farmersclaims.gov site is untrusted. The link is now working.