Class Actions

After Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they quickly passed the Legal Aid Act of 1995, which banned federally funded legal aid organizations from bringing class actions. My recollection is that the Republicans threatened to cut off all funding for legal aid in order to get President Clinton to sign the bill. This had the unfortunate effect of almost completely ending class actions against the Social Security Administration. In the 1980s and 1990s class actions had a major beneficial effect upon Social Security.

There was an op ed piece in the New York Times back in April calling for an end to the ban on federally funded legal aid organizations bringing class actions. There was a piece in The Nation in January calling for the same thing. I do not think that the friends of legal aid have forgotten about this issue or regard it as closed. I hope that this will get a hearing in the new Congress.

Veterans Day

Federal Register Items

Social Security has adopted new rules that say that "any [representative] payee who previously satisfied the payee investigation criteria, including a face-to-face interview, and currently serves as a payee generally need not appear for another face-to-face interview when subsequently applying to become a payee unless we determine within our discretion, that a new faceto- face interview is necessary."

The proposed rules that I have discussed here and here that would take away the right of an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) to schedule his or her hearings and let the Social Security Administration do the scheduling are the the Federal Register today. This may sound technical, but it is a big deal.

Finally, Commissioner Astrue has scheduled a public hearing for November 18 in Fort Myer, VA on his Compassionate Allowance plan and it is clear that he is planning to hold the hearing himself. In and of itself, the public hearing, like the Compassionate Allowance plan itself, is trivial but scheduling this is an indication that Michael Astrue is not leaving his position as Commissioner in the immediate future.

An Allegory On The Plan For Higher ALJ Productivity

In case you missed it, take a look at what I am referring to.

Automation Updates

The National Council of Social Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), an organization of Social Security management personnel, has posted a summary of a recent meeting their board had with officials from Social Security's Office of Automation Support (OAS). This gives a good deal of information about the current status of information technology updates at Social Security.

Byrd Stepping Down As Chair Of Senate Appropriations Committee

Senator Byrd is stepping down as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to be replaced by Senator Inouye, according to Reuters. Senator Byrd's health has been declining.

Comments On Proposed Representation Regulations From Organizations

Here are links to comments filed on the proposed regulations on representation of claimants coming from important organizations:

• National Association of Disability Representatives (NADR)
• National Organization of Social Security Claimants Representatives (NOSSCR)
• Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities -- Social Security Task Force

Today is the deadline for filing comments. You can post your comments online.

Proposed Rules On Scheduling Hearings Coming Out Monday

The Social Security Administration is having a set of proposed regulations entitled "Setting the Time and Place for a Hearing before an Administrative Law Judge" published in the Federal Register on Monday. Here is Social Security's summary:

We propose to amend our rules to clarify that the agency is responsible for setting the time and place for a hearing before an administrative law judge (ALJ). Consistent with our regulations at lower levels of the administrative process, we propose to use “we” or “us” in the rules setting the time and place for a hearing. These changes will ensure greater flexibility in scheduling hearings both in person and via video teleconferencing and will aid us in our effort to increase efficiency in the hearing process and reduce the number of pending hearings. The number of cases awaiting a hearing has reached historic proportions, and efforts toward greater efficiency are critical to addressing this problem.

The notice says "We expect that we will need to exercise this authority in only those situations where an ALJ is not scheduling the number of hearings that we consider sufficient." However, this limitation is not an enforceable promise. The apparent intent here is to centralize the scheduling of hearings, at least for some ALJs, giving those ALJs no control over their docket. Each ALJ involved will get their hearing schedule for a month and they will jolly well hear those cases or else. As the notice puts it "... through this proposed rule, we could ensure that those ALJs who do not process a sufficient number of cases have enough of them docketed for hearings to drive down and eliminate the backlog by 2013."

Incidentally, the proposal estimates huge costs for going ahead with this -- as claimants have their hearings quicker and get on benefits quicker.

In my opinion, the idea that this is the solution for Social Security's backlog problem is absurd. The problem is lack of personnel. ALJs are already hearing too many cases. The quality has already been badly affected. Trying to go ahead with this is just going to cause quality to decline even further and create a huge number of practical problems.