Florida Supreme Court halts state Bar's role in appointments to ABA policymaking panel

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14 hours ago

As part of an ongoing conservative backlash against the American Bar Association, Florida's highest court has asked The Florida Bar to stop "making appointments to the ABA House of Delegates," its policymaking body.
In a June 12 letter to Bar executive director Joshua Doyle, Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Carlos G. Muñiz said "many of the ABA's policies take positions on contested political and policy disputes over which reasonablepeople can and do disagree."
Muñiz, who was an official in President Donald Trump's first administration, added that the "Bar strives to avoid entangling itself, even indirectly, in contentious policy debates" and its "practice of making appointments to the ABA's House of Delegates is inconsistent with that goal."
The Florida Bar operates as an arm of the Florida Supreme Court to regulate the state's more than 114,000 lawyers. The agency "will revise our policies and procedures as directed," a spokesperson said. A request for comment is pending with the ABA.
Muñiz's letter came two weeks after the Trump administration's decision to get rid of the ABA's longstanding special access to review federal judicial candidates. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi called the ABA an "activist organization" that is no longer "a fair arbiter of nominees' qualifications" and "favor(s) nominees put forth by Democratic administrations."
The ABA was founded in 1878 with a "commitment to set the legal and ethical foundation for the American nation." For decades, it has reviewed candidates for federal judgeships, positions that are lifetime appointments.
"The ABA's steadfast refusal to fix the bias in its ratings process, despite criticism from Congress, the Administration, and the academy, is disquieting," Bondi said. Muñiz was Bondi's chief of staff when she was Florida's elected attorney general.
Moreover, the court in March released an administrative order to review whether those who want to practice law in Florida should continue to be required to have a diploma from an ABA-accredited law school.
The justices, who decide who gets to be a practicing attorney in the state, are "interested in considering the merits of ... continued reliance on the ABA and whether changes to the (state's attorney admission) rules are warranted." The order creates a workgroup chaired by one of its former members, Ricky L. Polston, now with the Shutts & Bowen law firm.
ABA complaints: Lawyers' group fuels Republicans' ire over its negative reviews of Trump judicial picks
The ABA's lower ratings for several of the Trump administration's judicial nominees have fed into opposition from the political right, explained Charles Zelden, a history and political science professor at Nova Southeastern University.
In Zelden's view, Trump wanted "ideological cohesion" and the ABA wanted the best judges, causing the conflict.
In Trump's first term, the president often ignored the ABA when choosing judges. And the association is known to set the standard for "cohesion, predictability and a legal system that operated in a coherent and legal manner," Zelden said.
The Supreme Court's letter, he added, demonstrates how much it has turned to the right under Gov. Ron DeSantis, who appointed five of the seven current justices, including Muñiz.
The letter made clear that it represents all the justices but one: Jorge Labarga.
Labarga was appointed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican who became an independent before becoming a Democrat. He was first appointed as a trial court judge by the state's last Democratic governor, the late Lawton Chiles. And he's often the sole dissenter on substantive opinions.
Muñiz's letter to the Bar is "a very Trumpian, MAGA way of viewing the events," Zelden said, referring to conservative antipathy toward the ABA.
This reporting content is supported by a partnership with Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. USA Today Network-Florida First Amendment reporter Stephany Matat is based in Tallahassee, Fla. She can be reached at [e-mail]. On X: @stephanymatat.
This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Florida Bar told to stop naming delegates to ABA policymaking panel