REFERENCE TITLE: state bar; rules; first amendment

State of Arizona House of Representatives Fifty-second Legislature Second Regular Session 2016

HCM 2002

Introduced by Representatives Kern: Campbell, Finchem, Lawrence, Mitchell, Thorpe

 

A CONCURRENT MEMORIAL

 

urging the Arizona Supreme Court to modify its rules related to the State Bar of Arizona to ensure the protection of First Amendment freedoms.

 

(TEXT OF BILL BEGINS ON NEXT PAGE)

 

To the Arizona Supreme Court:

      Your memorialist respectfully represents:

Whereas, integrated bar associations "implicate the First Amendment freedom of association, which includes the freedom to choose not to associate, and the First Amendment freedom of speech, which also includes the freedom to remain silent or to avoid subsidizing group speech with which a person disagrees," Kingstad v. State Bar of Wis., 622 F.3d 708, 712-13 (7th Cir. 2010); and

Whereas, in Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990), the United States Supreme Court held that California's integrated bar interfered with the First Amendment freedoms of its members by using their dues for political and ideological activities and that members' dues may be used only for activities such as the regulation of the legal profession or the improvement of legal services; and

Whereas, any time an integrated bar exercises political influence or otherwise acts as a trade association, it puts the First Amendment freedoms of its members at risk and creates the potential for future litigation; and

Whereas, state bar associations continue to violate Keller by using members' dues to engage in political or ideological behaviors, thereby forcing its members to subsidize those activities whether or not they agree with them; and

Whereas, the State Bar of Arizona admittedly spends its members' dues on political speech, including lobbying and electioneering; and

Whereas, the State Bar of Arizona recently lobbied against a recent legislative measure to replace Arizona's integrated bar association with a regulatory-only bar run by the Arizona Supreme Court; and

Whereas, the State Bar of Arizona maintains a web page supporting Arizona's merit selection system and has taken a variety of controversial public positions regarding merit selection; and

Whereas, the State Bar of Arizona takes other political positions with which some of its members may disagree and uses the mandatory fees of these members to do so; and

Whereas, the Arizona Supreme Court has asserted a claim to exclusive authority over the regulation of attorneys and the governance of the State Bar of Arizona.

Wherefore your memorialist, the House of Representatives of the State of Arizona, the Senate concurring, prays:

      1.  That the Arizona Supreme Court modify its rules related to the State Bar of Arizona to ensure compliance with Keller and the protection of the First Amendment freedoms of Arizona attorneys.

      2.  That the Secretary of State transmit copies of this Memorial to each justice of the Arizona Supreme Court.