Filed under: News, Politics, President Obama, Race and Civil Rights
On the eve of a possible vote by the House to fund a $1.25 billion discrimination settlement for black farmers, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the settlement was part of an effort by the Obama Administration to address previous wrongs:
"The president has been very clear to me in terms of the USDA's efforts that we are to treat farmers, ranchers and growers equally and fairly. That means not only making sure we are doing the right thing today, but also righting the wrongs from the past. Civil rights has become a top priority of mine," Vilsack said during a conference call.
The Senate approved the settlement for black farmers on Nov. 19th, after years of lawsuits and delay.
Black farmers successfully sued the government for discrimination in 1999 in the Pigford v. Glickman case, where $980 million was paid out to more than 16,000 farmers who were denied the same loans and subsidies offered to white farmers. Unfortunately, many eligible farmers were left out of the settlement or were not given enough time to file a claim.
In 2007, then-Sen. Barack Obama introduced a bill to reopen the case, and the $1.25 billion settlement was agreed upon but never funded by the Senate, despite passing twice in the House. On the 10th time the bill came before the Senate, it passed in a unanimous consent vote.
Now the race is on to get the House to pass the bill during this lame duck session before House leadership changes to Republican from Democrat, said John Boyd (pictured below), president of the National Black Farmers Association:
"We want to make sure we get the bill reconciled and we want to make sure that happens during the lame duck session and not get caught up in the House in January doing what it does which is reassigning committee chairs and looking at what their agenda may be," Boyd said during a conference call. "This is our opportunity for the House to act and that's why we are calling on leaders today to get us a vote this week."
Vilsack said he, too, is looking forward to a vote:
"We are hopeful that the House will take action quickly because we'd like t put this chapter of the USDA behind us and we'd like to then be able to focus our attention on other claims pending against the department."
An independent consultant hired by the USDA has identified more than 3,000 discrimination cases that warrant further examination. Those claims, originally totaling more than 14,000, lay unexamined during the Bush Administration. Many of those claims are now beyond the statute of limitations. Vilsack said he expects at least 600 of the remaining cases to lead to actual claims.
The first step in reconciliation is approving the settlement for black farmers, said Boyd.
"This case is about a group of aging black farmers who have been waiting decades for redress. The only problem with the vote coming up this week is that it may have come a little too late for many black farmers," said Boyd. "But for those who are waiting, it will be such long overdue justice."
The bill approved by the Senate also included a $3.4 billion fund to settle charges that the government mishandled money from the Native American Land Trust.
Now Boyd said he is battling perceptions that black farmers will be receiving automatic payouts without having to prove their cases; there is also a strain of thought making the rounds in the blogosphere that both the black farmers and Native American Land Trust settlements will be rife with fraud.
This is a notion that both Vilsack and Boyd dismiss.
Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli said government liability in both cases is capped and that the court and independent auditors from the federal government and USDA will examine the claims to prevent fraud. Applicants are required to provide proof that can be examined. Even attorneys representing black farmers will have to sign an affidavit under the threat of facing perjury charges that the claims from their clients are true.
"There are a number of steps along the way to guard against any concerns that folks may raise relative to people trying to seek resources they are not entitled to," Vilsack said.
Boyd said fraud claims try to shift attention away from the facts of the case:
"This is not a case about fraud. This is a case about black farmers being discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture. Asking them to wait another day for justice is a very sad situation," said Boyd.
Vilsack said the settlements were the right things to do. Moving forward, he said the agriculture department is trying to make sure it no longer discriminates against the people it is supposed to serve or employees. An auditor is set to deliver a set of recommendations at the end of the year.
With recent cases like that of Shirley Sherrod's unjust firing, Vilsack has a tough case to make. The relationship between the USDA and black farmers has suffered irreparable harm, but this settlement could begin the process of restoring trust.
"My focus has been making sure that we don't get the government and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the same situation that it has been for the last 20 or 30 years and that is by taking a look at our current practices and making sure we are not making the same mistakes again, either intentionally and unintentionally," said Vilsack.