Articles

Author: Timothy Sandefur The cover story of October’s Liberty magazine, now online here, is my article about several of PLF’s lawsuits involving the problem of “exactions.” Exactions are demands that the government makes on you when you request a building permit. Local goverments routinely demand that property owners g ...

PLF attorney J. David Breemer has an article in the Houston Chronicle about the attempt by state officials to devise a clever legal stratagem to take property from people without just compensation: At issue is state officials' strange embrace of a rolling beach — a concept that has no basis in Texas law. Under the … ...

Author: Timothy Sandefur It's been four years since the Supreme Court's infamous decision in Kelo v. New London. That case upheld the power of local bureaucrats to seize private homes and businesses and give it away to private developers to advance government-controlled plans for economic improvement. Such plans, of course, do not and canno ...

Author: Brandon Middleton The story here in California is sad but easy to understand: the Endangered Species Act is being used to fundamentally alter California's water delivery systems. State and federal projects that were designed to transfer water to the San Joaquin Valley are subject to myriad environmental restrictions. More water for fish ...

Author: Joshua Thompson That's the title of a new article in California Lawyer, a magazine sent to me for free as an active member of the California bar.  But this is not just an article in a magazine.  California lawyers who read the article, can answer a few questions about it, send in a check for … ...

Author: Timothy Sandefur You’ll be hearing a lot in coming months about the Slaughterhouse Cases, given that the Supreme Court is poised to reconsider that decision in McDonald v. Chicago. Slaughterhouse, you’ll recall, is the 1872 decision in which the Supreme Court essentially erased the Fourteenth Amendment’s privileges or immu ...

Author: Luke Wake This week Pfizer announced that it was closing down its offices in New London, Connecticut. This marked a sardonic conclusion to Susette Kelo’s sad story. She lost her home in a long and bitter fight against the City of New London which sought to take her property through the power of eminent … ...

Author: Joshua Thompson Proposal 2, the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative, bans preferential treatment on account of race or sex in  Michigan government.  The constitutionality of Proposal 2 was challenged immediately by a number of defendants who could no longer receive preferential treatment to attend Michigan Universities. ...

Author: Brandon Middleton While the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authored the controversial delta smelt biological opinion, the Bureau of Reclamation is the federal agency responsible for its implementation and severe restriction of water deliveries. In implementing the delta smelt biop, Reclamation failed to prepare a critical Environmental Impa ...