The House and Senate reached a deal on a consolidated appropriations bill for FY 2010.  Under the agreement, the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) will be funded at $420 million (7.7% increase), which spllit the difference between the amounts previously adopted by the House and Senate. The deal also removes the restriction on programs collecting attorneys fees, but did not remove the restrictions on class actions (passed in the House) or private funds (passed in the Senate).

The UAW Legislative office, and Barbara Somson in particular, invested a great deal of effort over the last three years working to get the restriction on private funds removed.  They really believed that we had a shot this year to get the private funds restriction removed and were very disappointed that is was not.