AUSTIN – How many attorneys does it take to elect a bar president? While that may sound like the opening to a bad joke, it’s actually the focus of House Bill 2393.
Currently, the number of Texas Bar members required to support a petition to run for president is 5 percent, which means a candidate must collect roughly 5,000 physical signatures from his or her fellow attorneys to appear on the ballot.
Authored by state Rep. Yvonne Davis, HB 2393 would reduce that number to 500 and allow for electronic signatures on petitions – opening the field for more candidates, especially minorities, to run.
The Judiciary & Civil Jurisprudence Committee heard the bill last Wednesday.
During the hearing, Davis said the Texas Bar is not as diversified as it should be and HB 2393 was her solution to add more “flavor” in hopes of building “a stronger Bar.”
Speaking in favor of the bill, Bar Director Steve Fischer, a Democrat, said that conservatives are also being left out.
“Since all lawyers pay the same dues, they all need to be represented – and they are not,” Fischer said. “We want more participation. Our elections have been a failure. We want to lower the signatures and 1 percent is fine.”
Perhaps nothing epitomizes Republicans’ discontent with Texas Bar leadership than a case against its Board of Directors currently before the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The case was brought by three Texas attorneys seeking to end mandatory bar dues. They argue that they shouldn’t be forced to fund the Bar’s liberal agenda.
Former Bar President Joe Longley also spoke in support of HB 2393, testifying that it takes months to collect all the signatures needed to run and that unless the law is changed the Bar will never have true diversity.
“We have a very low interest in Bar elections,” Longley said. “This bill is designed to create more diversity and more interest in the elections.”
Dallas attorney Steve Bolden, an African American, testified that HB 2393 is about “balance and fairness.”
Bolden brought up the highly-publicized social media posts made by current Bar President Larry McDougal, saying that segments of the Bar found the comments offensive – creating a situation where they looked to their leadership and found that they did not have representation.
HB 2393 was left pending.