JUSTICE AT LAST!Dragging their feet ever step of the way, the U.S. Senate has officially approved a multi-billion dollar settlement involving two lawsuits: one by black farmers who alleged racial discrimination by government lenders and the other by 300,000 American Indians who said they had been cheated out of land royalties dating to 1887.
Passage of the measure, by voice vote, unblocks a legislative logjam that has thwarted payouts, negotiated by the Obama administration, of $1.15 billion to the black farmers and $3.4 billion to the American Indians.
“We are one step closer to ensuring that the black farmers and Native Americans in these suits are fully compensated for past failures of judgment by the government,” U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said in a statement after the Senate vote. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said he hopes to seek a vote after Congress returns from a week-long recess on Nov. 29.
The House included the funding in war supplemental legislation it passed this summer, but it must vote on the settlements again. The Senate version of the war supplemental did not contain the funding to settle the lawsuits because Republicans objected to the proposed financing method, saying it added to the deficit.
The farmers’ 1997 class-action lawsuit alleged discrimination by the Agriculture Department’s lending programs. Under a negotiated settlement announced in February, qualified farmers can collect as much as $50,000, plus debt relief. Others may collect monetary damages up to $250,000.
At least seven times this year, Senate Republicans blocked efforts to include the spending provisions in pending legislation.
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a statement yesterday that the Senate’s “bold step” to finance the black farmers’ settlement “marks a major milestone in USDA’s efforts to turn the page on a sad chapter in our history.”
The Obama administration had requested $1.15 billion in its 2010 budget, on top of $100 million that Congress approved in the 2008 farm bill to finance the settlement.
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