April 16 (Reuters) - Federal judicial rulemakers on Thursday voted to abandon a key part of a proposed rule governing the disclosure of who finances friend-of-the-court briefs after top judges expressed concern the measure could interfere with the privacy of advocacy groups and their members.
The unanimous vote by the U.S. Judicial Conference's Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules marked the latest instance of the judiciary reducing the disclosure obligations for amicus brief filers in the long-debated measure, which was originally aimed at addressing transparency concerns.
The panel had previously endorsed a rule that would have required organizations that file amicus briefs to name any donors who provided more than $100 for the preparation of a brief if that person or entity was a nonmember or joined the group less than 12 months earlier.
The proposal advanced after the panel voted in April 2025 against a broader rule change that would have required amicus briefs to disclose if a party or its counsel in a given case contributed 25% or more of the organization's annual revenue.
Yet judicial rulemakers at the last minute in March withdrew the modest rule change they had submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court for its consideration, citing concerns from leaders of the U.S. Judicial Conference, the judiciary's top policymaking body.
In the March 10 letter, judicial rulemakers said members of the Judicial Conference's executive committee were concerned the requirement that groups identify new members who contributed funding "could interfere with the privacy of those organizations and of their members."
That concern was shared by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a frequent amicus brief filer which in an April 2 letter argued the rule as previously drafted could infringe on associational rights under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.
As a result, the appellate rules panel on Thursday voted to scrap the provision governing new members, resulting in a rule change that only slightly differs from a preexisting requirement that amicus filers disclose any support from nonmembers.
The judiciary had been considering the rule change since 2019, when Democratic lawmakers including U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island introduced legislation they said would provide more transparency about who was behind such briefs.
U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of Republican President Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., on Thursday said it had "always seemed to me was at least that this was attempting to fix a problem that we didn't know existed."
"I wouldn't be pushing for a possible solution to a non-problem over the very negative reaction that we got," he said.