Report from governmental affairs. Join ABA Day 2022

• Pages: 67-68

ABA Insider | REPORT FROM GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

that evictions disrupt the lives of both

tenants and landlords. On the tenant

side, she said individuals often need

to leave their neighborhoods, move

their children to a different school

and face an increased risk of contract-

ing COVID-19.

She called the guidelines “common-

sense standards for preventing unnec-

essary evictions,” and in particular, she

focused on the signicance of requiring

landlords and tenants to participate in

pre-litigation diversion programs.

“They can create ways to pay past-

due rent, to connect people with social

services if needed or to help the tenant

nd suitable housing,” Mariner says.

“They can work best when done before

an eviction proceeding is begun, and

this is one of the most important contri-

butions of the guidelines.”

Jeremy Burkhart, a delegate-at-large

from Ohio, spoke in opposition to the

resolution. He told the House he had

been both a tenant and a landlord and

characterized the guidelines as “grossly

unfair to landlords” and “not rooted

in reality.”

“The truth is that today the tenant

holds the balance of power in the land-

lord-tenant relationship,” Burkhart said.

Yang, when given time to respond to

Burkhart, reiterated that the guidelines

benet both tenants and landlords by

limiting and mitigating litigation costs.

Resolution 612 was co-sponsored by

the Section of Civil Rights and Social

Justice, the Commission on Domestic

and Sexual Violence and the Commis-

sion on Homelessness and Poverty. With

its adoption, the ABA and its relevant

committees can provide guidance to leg-

islatures and advocates on how to en-

sure tenants facing eviction are afforded

a reasonable level of due process, the

report says.

The ABA has long advocated for

protecting tenants’ rights and ensuring

due process in judicial proceedings that

involve housing. Among its efforts, the

House of Delegates approved a resolu-

tion in 2017 that called on governments

to enact legislation that prohibited

“discrimination in housing on the basis

of lawful source of income.” Q

REPORT FROM

GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS

Join ABA

Day 2022

Celebrating 25 Years of Advocacy

on the Hill

ABA Day is the association’s

largest lobbying event of

the year. It’s when the ABA,

state and local bar leaders,

and members from across the country

meet with members of Congress to

advocate for access to justice and other

issues of great importance to the legal

profession. This annual event brings the

collective voice of the legal profession

to Washington, D.C., to help shape

legislators’ opinions on developing

policy issues.

This year, we will celebrate the 25th

anniversary of this event during the

week of April 4. The ongoing pandemic

has restricted our ability to meet face-

to-face in Washington, but we have

adjusted our advocacy strategy and

techniques. As in 2020 and 2021, ABA

Day 2022 will be held virtually.

Fortunately, the ingenuity and deter-

mination of our participants have en-

abled the ABA to host highly successful

virtual events through its Governmen-

tal Affairs Ofce. In 2020 and 2021,

hundreds of participants communicated

with congressional leaders and staff

while thousands of others used social

media to discuss the issues.

“For the last 25 years, ABA Day

has been a major force in advocacy on

the Hill,” ABA President Reginald M.

Turner says. “ABA members, along with

state and local bar leaders, have led the

way in engaging with elected ofcials

on issues of critical importance to our

profession and access to justice in our

communities.”

ABA Day started in 1997 on the

recommendation of the ABA Task Force

on Congressional and Governmental

Relations, a group of distinguished

lawyers knowledgeable about federal

policymaking. The group urged the

ABA to convene a regular gathering in

the District of Columbia for in-person

discussions between key government

policymakers and ABA groups.

Since its inception, ABA Day has

grown signicantly. In 2019, our most

recent in-person event, more than 340

attendees from all 50 states and the

Virgin Islands conducted meetings in

hundreds of Hill ofces. Deborah Enix-

Ross, now ABA president-elect, served

as the 2019 ABA Day chair.

In April 2021, ABA member Bill

Bay served as chair of our fully virtual

ABA Day event, during which seven

members of Congress from both parties

joined us to discuss our two primary

issues: strengthening federal judicial

security and funding for the Legal Ser-

vices Corp.

Highlighting the need for adequate

LSC funding to help low-income Amer-

icans access legal services has been our

main recurring issue. Over the years,

ABA Day advocacy has helped ward off

numerous efforts to defund the program

and helped increase funding to the scal

year 2021 amount of $465 million.

The success of the virtual 2020 and

2021 ABA Days helped inspire the Stu-

dent Debt Week of Action, an addition-

al virtual advocacy event that occurred

in September. Collaborating with other

professional groups with members who

also graduate with vast amounts of

student debt, the event culminated in

thousands of messages sent to Congress,

over 100,000 interactions on social

media and signicant improvements

in the Public Service Loan Forgiveness

program.

ABA Day advocacy also has resulted

in other notable successes. For exam-

ple, a key issue at ABA Day in 2014,

2015 and 2016 was burdensome tax

legislation affecting law rms. The ABA

ultimately prevailed on the issue with

the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs

Act of 2017 when congressional leaders

decided not to include ABA-opposed

mandatory accrual accounting propos-

als in the nal bill. Those proposals

would have required many law rms

ABA JOURNAL | APRIL–MAY 2022

67