Sylvia Borunda Firth, et al. v. Tony K. McDonald, et al.

The plaintiffs in this case—members of the mandatory State Bar of Texas—have filed a petition for a writ of certiorari, which has been docketed as Case Number 21-800. Although the defendants—the voting members of the Texas State Bar’s Board of Directors sued only in their official capacities—believe that the plaintiffs’ certiorari petition should be denied, they conditionally cross-petition for this Court’s review of the following questions:

1. Whether the State Bar of Texas, which is “a public corporation and an administrative agency of the judicial department of [the Texas] government,” Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 81.011(a), qualifies as a government agency for purposes of the government speech doctrine, such that the State Bar of Texas’s speech is “not subject to scrutiny under the [First Amendment’s] Free Speech Clause,” Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 464 (2009).

2. To the extent that this Court’s case law—including Keller v. State Bar of California, 496 U.S. 1 (1990)—precludes applying the government speech doctrine to the State Bar of Texas’s speech, whether that precedent should be overruled. (I)