Ashley Moody on Disability Rights: Florida's Suit Against the Section 504 Integration Rule, Her Deciding Vote for Medicaid Paperwork Rules, and the Officials Who Dropped Disability Enforcement

With Ashley Moody as Florida attorney general, Florida was one of the 17 Republican-led states that sued in 2024 over the federal Section 504 disability rule, and Florida was one of the five states left in the case when the Trump administration's Justice Department joined Texas, Alaska, Montana, Louisiana, and Florida in asking the court to vacate the rule's integration provisions, and on September 23, 2026 the court struck the entire integration provision, which barred needless segregation of people with disabilities in institutions. In Florida, 77,123 people were already waiting for Medicaid home care.

As a senator, on July 1, 2025, Moody cast one of the 50 votes that passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, whose six-month eligibility checks CBO expects to leave 700,000 more people uninsured in 2034, after voting against motions to remove the bill's new paperwork requirements and to strike its Medicaid cuts. She voted to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi and civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon, whose division cut its disability enforcement by about 85 percent, and Mehmet Oz, whose Medicaid agency narrowed who counts as medically frail.

Ashley Moody's Votes and Confirmations on Disability Rights and Benefits

• Florida Sued Under Moody Over the Section 504 Disability Rule, and the Rule's Ban on Needless Institutionalization Was Struck in 2026. In 2024, with Ashley Moody as Florida attorney general, Florida was one of the 17 Republican-led states that sued the Department of Health and Human Services over its updated Section 504 rule, which enforces the ban on disability discrimination in federally funded programs; Disability Scoop's list of the plaintiff states includes Florida. Florida stayed in the case, and in 2026 the Justice Department, representing the health department, joined Texas, Alaska, Montana, Louisiana, and Florida in asking the court to vacate the rule's integration provisions. On September 23, 2026, the court vacated the entire integration provision which includes specific prohibitions against segregation and institutionalization. People with disabilities who want services at home and in their communities may have to go to greater lengths, including suing states, the Florida Phoenix reported.
• Moody Cast One of the 50 Votes for Medicaid Work Requirements and Paperwork Checks That Put Disabled Adults' Coverage at Risk. On July 1, 2025, Ashley Moody voted yes on H.R. 1, which passed 50 to 50 with the Vice President's vote, so it would have failed without her. The law requires states to verify that adults on expansion Medicaid work or qualify for an exemption, starting by January 2027, and adds eligibility checks every six months for those adults. The Medicaid agency projects that the work requirement means enrollment would be reduced by 2.3 million individuals in FY 2027, and CBO estimates the six-month checks will increase the number of people who are uninsured by 700,000 in 2034. Disabled adults who are not on disability-based Medicaid must prove they qualify as medically frail, a verification that will place an enormous administrative burden on individuals, health care providers, health plans, and states, Georgetown's Center for Children and Families found.
• Moody Voted Against Removing the Medicaid Paperwork Rules and Cuts in June 2025. On June 30, 2025, Moody voted no on a motion to send the bill back to committee to remove provisions stripping people of federal benefits through the creation of new administrative burdens and paperwork requirements, which failed 48 to 52. She also voted against a second motion that would strike any provision that cuts funding for Medicaid, which lost by 47 to 53. Home and community-based services, which let people with disabilities live at home rather than in institutions, are largely an optional Medicaid benefit, which makes these programs more vulnerable to reductions during periods of state or federal budget constraints, the Bipartisan Policy Center notes. People on Medicaid home care waiting lists waited 32 months on average in 2025, KFF found.
• Moody Voted Against Repealing the Six-Month Medicaid Checks in January 2026. On January 30, 2026, Moody voted no on Senator Bernie Sanders's amendment to repeal Section 71107 of the Act titled eligibility redeterminations, the six-month checks for expansion adults. It needed 60 votes and failed 49 to 51. Under the checks, a disabled adult in the expansion group has to prove eligibility again every six months or risk losing coverage, the change CBO tied to higher uninsurance in the item above.
• Moody Voted to Confirm Mehmet Oz, Whose Agency Narrowed Medicaid's Disability Exemption. On April 3, 2025, Moody voted to confirm Mehmet Oz as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and he was confirmed 53 to 45. Oz's agency issued a June 2026 rule for the work requirement under which a condition must significantly impair a person's ability to work, and Georgetown's Center for Children and Families concluded that Fewer people will qualify as medically frail.
• Moody Voted to Confirm the Justice Department Officials Who Cut Disability Rights Enforcement by About 85 Percent. Ashley Moody voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general on February 4, 2025 and Harmeet Dhillon as assistant attorney general for civil rights on April 3, 2025, when Dhillon was confirmed 52 to 45. The Civil Rights Division's own website showed an approximately 85 percent reduction of disability-related enforcement activity in the administration's first year compared with the year before, according to Red Line for Civil Rights, a tracker run by former Justice Department lawyers.
• Moody Voted to Confirm the Officials Whose Departments Joined Florida to Strike the Rule Against Needless Institutionalization. Ashley Moody voted to confirm Todd Blanche as deputy attorney general on March 5, 2025 and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary on February 13, 2025. By June 2026 Blanche was serving as acting Attorney General, NOTUS reported. In June 2026 the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that the disability laws impose no legal duty on states to provide integrated services, and the Justice Department, representing Kennedy's department, switched sides and agreed with the states that the requirement should be undone in the Section 504 case that Florida had joined, which ended with the integration provisions vacated. The same month, the Justice Department asked a federal appeals court earlier this month to vacate its March decision in its own long-running case on behalf of medically fragile children in Florida, WLRN and The 19th reported.
• Moody Voted to Confirm Linda McMahon, Whose Education Department Dismissed Thousands of Civil Rights Complaints. On March 3, 2025, Moody voted to confirm Linda McMahon as secretary of education, and she was confirmed 51 to 45. About 12,000 complaints were pending before Trump took office, more than half concerning students with disabilities, and under McMahon the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights dismissed more than 6,000 complaints without an investigation, The Hechinger Report found, after the department closed seven of its regional civil rights offices, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco.
• Moody Voted to Confirm the Social Security Commissioner as Disability Hearing Backlogs Grew. On May 6, 2025, Moody voted to confirm Frank Bisignano as commissioner of Social Security, a month after she voted against amendments to prevent DOGE from closing Social Security offices and to preserve Social Security's phone service. The number of people waiting for a disability hearing rose by more than 73,000 from January 2025 to February 2026, to nearly 344,000, and the agency lost 13 percent of its administrative law judges, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found. Those waiting are applicants who have been denied once and are appealing.
• Moody Voted to Confirm the Labor Secretary Who Kept Subminimum Wages for Workers With Disabilities. On March 10, 2025, Moody voted to confirm Lori Chavez-DeRemer as secretary of labor. In July 2025 Chavez-DeRemer's department withdrew its proposal to phase out the issuance of subminimum wage certificates, so employers can still pay some workers with disabilities less than the minimum wage.

What the Retreat From Disability Protections Ashley Moody Backed Means for Florida

• Medically fragile children. In 2023 a federal court found that Florida had kept children with complex medical needs unnecessarily institutionalized in nursing facilities, in a case the Justice Department brought; in 2026 the department, under the officials Moody confirmed, asked a federal appeals court earlier this month to vacate its March decision in the case, a reversal that WLRN and The 19th reported came as a massive blow to parents who had hoped Florida would be forced to provide more care at home.
• Home care waiting list. 77,123 people in Florida were on waiting lists for Medicaid home and community-based services in 2026, KFF found, the services that let people with disabilities live at home instead of in institutions.
• Disability benefits. 465,720 disabled workers in Florida received Social Security disability benefits at the end of 2024, according to the Social Security Administration, and the national hearing backlog means longer waits for those who appeal a denial.

Frequently Asked Questions About Ashley Moody on Disability rights

Last updated: 2026-10-25

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