Revoking legal services: Republicans want to keep lawyers from the poor

Progressive, The, April, 1996 by Steven Stycos

Poor people in prison would no longer receive help from legal services in child-custody cases or debt-collection actions. Undocumented workers fighting exploitative landlords or seeking political asylum would not get legal services' help. And legal-services attorneys would be specifically prohibited from representing people in public-housing eviction proceedings if the accused has been charged with drug dealing.

All told, the gutting of legal services would deny full legal representation to millions of people.

For Helga Bidawid, the lesson is clear. "Republicans are against the little people," she says. "It's just the way it is. They're for big business. The little people mean nothing to them."