Federal Trade Commission Press Release, FTC Chairman Ferguson Announces New Policy Regarding American Bar Association (Feb. 14, 2025):

Today, Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson announced a new policy that prohibits FTC political appointees from holding leadership roles in the American Bar Association (ABA), participating in ABA events, or renewing their ABA memberships. Additionally, the FTC will no longer use its resources to support any employee's ABA membership or participation in ABA activities. Chairman Ferguson’s letter to staff can be found here.

Josh Blackman (South Texas; Google Scholar), FTC Bans Political Appointees From Being ABA Members (Feb. 14, 2025):

The ABA has been planting the seeds of its own demise for decades. 

In April 2023, I wrote a column for the ABA Journal titled "The ABA needs ideological diversity to ensure its future." I concluded:

If the ABA does not arrest its progressive lurch, the organization risks its own obsolescence. Model Rules will not be adopted. Evaluations of judicial nominees will be ignored. The accreditation monopoly will cease. And so on. A decline in membership will be the least of the ABA's problems. The ABA can either adapt to a new political reality or fade away like the guilds of yore. …

The FTC is first, but it will not be last. I suspect all federal agencies will follow suit. Whatever difficulties the ABA had with membership numbers will become far worse. And I fully expect the Department of Education to revoke the ABA's accreditation power.

The ABA will be left with little reason to exist–at least not at such a large size. There will be no real influence left.

It didn't have to end this way. The ABA could have arrested its decline. Instead, it was captured by leftist groups, and tied itself to the DEI mast.

Paul Horwitz (Alabama), What is it Like to Be an ABA Member?:

The letter is an exemplary Trump administration missive written in the Trump administration house style. It's exemplary, among other things, in that it curries favor with the boss; how fitting that it was dated February 14. …

In almost-defending the letter, the VC post argues that the ABA has had it coming for a long time, without ever getting to the rightness or wrongness, seriousness or silliness, of the "it." This is a justification in roughly the same way that one might accurately discuss the loud barking one's neighbor's dog and the need for it to be better behaved, while avoiding discussion of the fact that you dealt with the problem by poisoning the dog's food. 

I'm sympathetic to the criticisms of the ABA. I have belonged to the ABA since 2000. I have found it useless at best as a membership organization. Its function in my own life is minimal. The ABA Journal, which has had good moments in the past, is now so poor that it makes state bar magazines look good by comparison. The political leanings of the organization have long been evident. … I groan at some of its accreditation moves and at other policy proposals and ignore its amicus briefs. I remain a member for pretty typical reasons: one is simple inertia, and the other is that it occasionally does things in my area that I would like to know about. …

It is, as the letter's last paragraph makes clear, a literally and purely performative action [The FTC’s senior leadership should not lend a patina of nonpartisan legitimacy to an organization guided by the principles of the Democrat Party and the priorities of Big Tech. Rather, we will focus on what is important: Fighting monopolies, promoting competition and economic liberty, protecting consumers from fraud and unfairness, and helping President Trump usher in America’s Golden Age.]. 

• Bloomberg Law, FTC Chair Calls ABA 'Radical' Advocacy Group Seized by Big Tech
• Law360, FTC Political Appointees Told To Break Up With 'Leftist' ABA

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