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Wall Street Journal
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
Trumping D.C.'s Progressive Pipe Dreams
The House voted this week, with 56 Democratic ayes, to stop the District of Columbia from letting noncitizens vote in local elections. Then a resolution to quash D.C. 'sanctuary' policies passed with 11 Democrats. Both must hurdle a Senate filibuster, but note this show of bipartisanship by Democrats afraid of unpopular progressive excesses. Only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections, but a few localities have experimented in recent years with letting aliens vote for mayor or school board. The D.C. City Council passed a law in 2022 to enfranchise noncitizens who have a mere 30 days of residency. That's a worse version of a bad idea, and Congress has a right to intervene, since D.C. is a federal enclave. A resolution to overturn the law in 2023 passed the House with 42 Democratic votes, but it didn't get through the Senate.
Reuters
09-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
US Attorney General Bondi's brother loses election to lead Washington DC bar
June 9 (Reuters) - Brad Bondi, the brother of U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, has lost his bid to lead Washington's attorney bar association after an unusually closely-watched election that drew record turnout from the U.S. capital's 120,000 lawyers. Bondi, a partner and co-chair of the investigations and white-collar defense practice at law firm Paul Hastings, lost the race to serve as bar president to Diane Seltzer, an employment law attorney at The Seltzer Law Firm. D.C. Bar CEO Robert Spagnoletti announced the results on Monday after a race that the group said drew a record 38,600 ballots, up from 7,500 in the last election. Seltzer secured more than 90 percent of the vote, Spagnoletti said. Bondi in a statement said "although I did not prevail, I stand with a heart full of gratitude and a mind heavy with concern for the future of the D.C. Bar." He said he was "disgusted by how rabid partisans lurched this election into the political gutter, turning a professional campaign into baseless attacks, identity politics, and partisan recrimination." Seltzer in a statement said the result showed that Washington's lawyers care about "maintaining the rule of law, being able to practice law without fear of retaliation, and having a leader who is experienced and has the qualifications to be in that position.' Some lawyers in Washington had issued warnings on social media that a Bondi victory could imperil the bar's independence, urging members to vote for Seltzer. Bondi said before the results were announced that he had run a non-partisan campaign for an apolitical post. Membership in the association is mandatory for D.C. lawyers. The group's 23-person board, of which the president is a member, plays a limited role in enforcing ethics rules for attorneys by recommending members to sit on a separate panel that oversees the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Bondi's candidacy rattled some lawyers due to his ties to the Trump administration. His sister, the attorney general, is a loyalist to President Donald Trump and has echoed some of Trump's false claims about voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Trump in March directed Pam Bondi to refer lawyers and law firms for disciplinary action if they appeared to violate professional conduct rules. That directive was part of an executive order that accused immigration lawyers of coaching their clients to lie. The Office of Disciplinary Counsel, created by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, has authority to investigate attorney misconduct and to recommend suspending or disbarring lawyers. It pursued several cases against attorneys involved in efforts to overturn Trump's defeat to Democrat Joe Biden during the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The appeals court can reject recommendations from the bar association's board, and the bar's president cannot sway investigatory decisions, according to Spagnoletti. Voting in the D.C. Bar election began on April 15, after Trump launched a pressure campaign on the U.S. legal industry through executive orders against law firms with ties to his legal or political adversaries.
Washington Post
09-06-2025
- Business
- Washington Post
Bradley Bondi, brother of attorney general, loses bid to lead D.C. Bar
Members of the D.C. Bar have elected an employment attorney as the association's new president, overwhelmingly rejecting the candidacy of lawyer Bradley J. Bondi, brother of Attorney General Pam Bondi. With nearly 38,000 ballots cast, Bar officials announced Monday that Diane Seltzer garnered more than 90 percent of the vote. Bradley Bondi, a partner in the criminal defense firm Paul Hastings, received about 9 percent.
