Courting Liberty

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson is joined by PLF Attorney Wen Fa and PLF Client Andy Cilek to discuss how The Supreme Court is being asked to review Minnesota's speech-stifling restrictions on voter apparel. The law tramples free speech rights by forbidding voters from wearing anything to the polls that might be interpreted as even slightly political or ideological, even if it has no relation to any candidate, ballot measure, or political party.

PLF Attorney Jonathan Wood leads a discussion with PLF D.C. Center Executive Director Todd Gaziano and PLF Attorney Jeffrey McCoy on the Congressional Review Act and how the opportunity to use the act to effect positive change is crucially important. In recent weeks, many have said that the window to use the CRA to undo regulations has closed. However, a coalition of liberty-minded public policy and legal organizations have joined forces to challenge that notion. PLF recently launched a revamped Red Tape Rollback website and is advocating an expanded use of the Congressional Review Act — potentially paving the way for hundreds of rules to be reconsidered.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson leads a discussion with PLF Senior Attorney Tony Francois about how PLF client and Duarte Nursery co-owner John Duarte's due process rights are being plowed under by the feds. The outcome of this case against the Duarte family has major implications not only for Duarte Nursery, but for farmers across the United States.

PLF Senior Attorney Joshua Thompson hosts an in-depth conversation with PLF client and Book Passage bookstore owner Bill Petrocelli and PLF Attorney Anastasia Boden on how California’s newly expanded autograph law which formerly applied only to sports memorabilia — now applies to sellers of any signed commodity worth over $5, including books. In response to this, PLF and Book Passage have filed a constitutional lawsuit against the onerous new state restrictions that will make it extremely risky, if not impossible, for stores to sell autographed books or host author events, like the more than 700 book signings hosted by Book Passage each year.

PLF's D.C. Center Attorney Jonathan Wood hosts a special podcast discussion from Washington D.C. on how Pacific Legal Foundation is stepping up to defend the Congressional Review Act. Joining Wood for the discussion and analysis are PLF D.C. Center Executive Director and Senior Fellow in Constitutional Law Todd Gaziano and PLF Attorney Oliver Dunford. PLF has moved to intervene against a federal lawsuit by the Center for Biological Diversity — which claims, astonishingly, that Congress and the president violate the Constitution when they pass a law that rescinds a bureaucracy’s regulation. As PLF argues, CBD’s lawsuit seeks to turn the Constitution on its head, placing unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats above Congress. Under our Constitution, administrative agencies only have power that Congress chooses to delegate to them. Congress is free to limit its delegation of power as it sees fit.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson leads a candid discussion with PLF's Executive Vice President and General Counsel John Groen and PLF Client Jennifer Lynch about the May 4th California Supreme Court hearing on PLF's challenge to the California Coastal Commission’s attack on some Encinitas residents’ right to protect their oceanfront homes from storms and erosion. The Lynch's troubles date back to December, 2010, when a severe storm and erosion destroyed their seawall and the lower portion of their long-existing stairway that led from their homes down to the beach. The City of Encinitas gave Lynch and Frick permission to rebuild the seawall and the stairway. But the Coastal Commission balked, and refused to affirm that approval. Instead, the commission attached a condition that the seawall permit would expire in 20 years, forcing the homeowners to apply again or tear out the seawall.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson hosts a conversation with PLF Attorney Anastasia Boden on PLF's Economic Liberty Project. PLF believes it is the right of every person to earn an honest living and compete freely without unreasonable government interference. The Economic Liberty Project is dedicated to challenging irrational and anti-competitive occupational licensing laws which exist not to protect the public, but serve only to protect discrete interest groups from competition.

PLF Senior Attorney Joshua Thompson hosts a special discussion with PLF Client Adam Mueller, a fifth generation butter maker at Minerva Dairy. Ohio-based Minerva Dairy, America’s oldest family-owned cheese and butter dairy, sued Wisconsin over its newly enforced ban on the sale of ungraded butter. As the lawsuit argues, the ban is an unjustified, anti-competitive restriction that protects large Wisconsin-based dairies, while blocking 123-year-old Minerva Dairy from selling its artisanal butters to Dairy State consumers, as well as freezing out most other dairies across the country.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson hosts a discussion with PLF Atlantic Center Attorney Christina Martin about how federal officials have missed their legal deadline for acting on a petition to remove the golden parakeet from Endangered Species Act coverage. Therefore, PLF is serving notice on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that the agency will be sued if the foot-dragging continues.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson leads a discussion with PLF Senior Attorney Damien Schiff and renowned Colorado-based wildlife biologist Dr. Rob Roy Ramey about the delisting petition submitted by PLF calling on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse from Endangered Species Act coverage. The petition is based on new scientific findings confirming that the mouse, far from being “threatened,” is not meaningfully different from other populations of jumping mice with healthy populations in a number of parts of North America.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson interviews PLF Northwest Center Attorney Ethan Blevins and PLF Client MariLyn Yim about PLF's challenging of Seattle’s new mandate forcing landlords to rent to the first qualified person who applies for a unit. By denying owners the freedom to choose among qualified applicants and to exercise nondiscriminatory discretion about who will live in their units, the “first in time” rule violates state constitutional protections for property rights.

PLF's D.C. Center Executive Director Todd Gaziano hosts a special, post Supreme Court oral argument round table discussion with PLF's Executive Vice President and General Counsel John Groen, PLF's President and CEO Steven Anderson, and PLF client Donna Murr. On March 20, 2017, the historic property rights case of Murr v. State of Wisconsin and St. Croix County was argued at the Supreme Court. The Murrs would like to sell the vacant parcel, to fund repairs to their family cabin which sits on an adjacent parcel that their parents bought several years earlier. But government officials — imposing regulations enacted after both parcels were purchased — have forbidden them from selling or making any productive use of the vacant investment parcel.

Director of Litigation at Pacific Legal Foundation, Jim Burling, interviews General Counsel at PLF, John Groen, about what it takes to present an argument in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Groen's upcoming case is Murr v. Wisconsin and St. Croix County and will be heard on March 20, 2017 in Washington D.C.

Pacific Legal Foundation's Harold Johnson interviews PLF attorney Jonathan Wood and Beth Casoni of the Massachusetts Lobstermen's Association. Casoni is one Wood's several clients in the fishing industry that is challenging the Obama Administrations use of the Antiquities Act to designate vast swaths of ocean as a national monument.

PLF Attorney Jonathan Wood, Executive Director of PLF's DC Center Todd Gaziano and Senior Attorney Tony Francois dive into the Congressional Review Act in this podcast brought to you by the Pacific Legal Foundation. For more information about the Pacific Legal Foundation project, visit www.redtaperollback.com.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson speaks with PLF Senior Attorney Damien Schiff, Kirk Wilbur of the California Cattlemen's Association and Kathy DeForest, a rancher in Modoc County California, about the California's endangered species listing of the Gray Wolf.

Pacific Legal Foundation's Harold Johnson interviews Managing Attorney for PLF’s Atlantic Center in Florida, Mark Miller, and his client Jim Iwanicki, engineer manager for the Marquette County Road Commission in Marquette County, Michigan. PLF joined with Marquette County officials in appealing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s unjustified veto of local road project, CR-595, that is vital for community safety and environmental health.

PLF Director of Litigation Jim Burling, interviews client Donna Murr, PLF General Counsel John Groen and PLF Attorney Dave Breemer about Murr's case which will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court on March 20, 2017.

President Trump has announced the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court. PLF attorneys Todd Gaziano, Mark Miller and Tony Francois discuss the nominee and highlight some of his qualifications for the nation's highest court.

It's school choice week! PLF attorney's Joshua Thompson and Wencong Fa talk about PLF's involvement in school choice through our donor-supported litigation nationwide. School choice embodies the simple proposition that parents know the best school for their children. By injecting choice and competition into the traditional public school monopoly, parents, students, teachers, schools, and taxpayers are better off.