Image
Loading...
Every year, 250 million Americans face issues that land them in the civil justice system; think eviction, debt collection and poor housing. And here's a shocking number: more than 90% of people with low incomes either get no legal help or inadequate legal assistance. Today’s guest, Mallory SoRelle, is a public policy faculty member at Duke. She's co-written a book called Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power. The book is filled with true stories and analysis about how to harness power, politics, and justice to create effective public policy for everyone.
Listen to the episode
Conversation Highlights
Responses have been edited for clarity.
On the types of issues low-income people can face in civil court
In the U.S., if you have to go to court because you are accused of some sort of criminal offense, the Constitution guarantees that you have a right to an attorney. But there's no similar guarantee on the civil side.
For example, “Sora” ran into problems with her landlord because direct rent payments from a government housing voucher program came late. Her landlord tried to evict her. She had not done anything wrong. She couldn't get a lawyer because the legal services in the area that she lived were overburdened. She went through court without an attorney, and she said, "I had all this evidence, and they wouldn't look at any of it." She got evicted and everyone was telling her, "Oh, that doesn't seem right. You shouldn't have been evicted."
The second time she went to court for a similar issue, she was able to get a free attorney, and she says it was a totally different experience. “They knew exactly what to do, they could force the judge to listen to my evidence, and it worked out in my favor."
On why some renters are turning to organizing
Many people said, "Man, when I was in those courts, I realized this wasn't just about me. There were so many other people in that room with problems related to housing, and the judge just wouldn't recognize it. And at some point, it can't be all our faults when it's a whole room full of people who don't know one another with the same problems with the same landlord, and somehow we're being evicted because the landlord won't keep their buildings safe." And those folks said, "There's got to be a better way than us all sitting in here one by one trying to deal with this."
On the power of “regular people” organizing
We generally think of marginalized people as not being able to exercise political power in very many meaningful ways. But what we find is, that simply isn't true when folks are able to organize. A lot of the tenant groups we talk to have been instrumental in trying to get, for example, right to counsel laws passed in their state so that everyone who's going through housing court does have an opportunity to get an attorney. And if they can't get one, the judge will dismiss the case and say, "Don't come back until this person has representation." They've been instrumental in winning elections in local city councils. So, you now have folks on the city council who say, "Oh, I know this housing fraud thing is happening, and we actually need to pay attention to that."
Takeaways for policymakers?
One of the things we know in political science is that policymakers often misunderstand the preferences of their constituents in very predictable (often not malicious) ways. Policymakers think they know what their constituents want, but it is often just a subset of their constituents. And so, I think being attentive to the organizing that's happening in your communities; being attentive to the needs of folks who may not be the ones knocking on your door; policymakers really taking seriously, not just what elites and experts are telling them, but what the folks who are actually living these experiences are telling them, is an important step.
Loading...
About Policy 360
Policy 360 is a series of policy-focused conversations . This episode is hosted by Anna Gassman-Pines, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. New episodes premiere throughout the academic year. Guests have included luminaries like Nobel Peace Prize Winner Maria Ressa and former director of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim, as well as researchers from Duke University and other institutions. Conversations are timely and relevant.