Personnel Announcement For Transition

The Obama Transition Team has started to announce some of the people who will be doing agency reviews. Tom Perez will be heading up the agency reviews for Justice, Health and Human services, Veterans Affairs, and Housing and Urban Development, the group that seems most likely to include Social Security. Here is a little information about Perez:

He is Secretary of the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation under Governor Martin O’Malley. He worked in a variety of civil rights positions at the Department of Justice, including Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Attorney General Janet Reno. He also served as Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Donna Shalala, and as Special Counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy. From 2001 until 2007, he was Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Maryland School of Law, and is an adjunct faculty member at the George Washington School of Public Health.

No word yet on who will be on the "parachute team" that will be landing on Social Security in the near future.

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.