Articles

My Washington Times op-ed on the Koontz case

November 30, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Today’s Washington Times carries this article by me and Ilya Shapiro about the Koontz case. Excerpt: The implications of this case go beyond issues of property rights. When officials start treating permits as a kind of benefit for which people can be forced to pay with resources or concessions that have no connection to their … ...

Articles

President’s weekly report — November 30, 2012

November 30, 2012 | By ROB RIVETT

Environment — Endangered Caribou The United States Fish & Wildlife Service announced a drastic (and well-justified) reduction in critical habitat for the Selkirk Caribou from 375,000 to approximately 30,000 acres, based largely on the fact that the caribou do not live in lower elevations in Idaho as originally assumed. We still, however, ...

Articles

Local news covers Koontz’s property rights battle

November 30, 2012 | By BRIAN HODGES

Fox News in Orlando ran this story about our U.S. Supreme Court case, Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District. The reporter provides one of the best summaries of the case I have heard:  the district said, before you can use your land, you have to pay to fix up our land. Sadly, the government still doesn’t seem … ...

Articles

States stiffen resistance to Obama Administration's increasingly unpopular health care scheme

November 30, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

Arizona and Michigan have joined the list of states refusing to establish health insurance “exchanges.” These “exchanges” are the devices used to implement the Individual Mandate; although they’re supposed to look enough like actual markets to fool people, in reality they are nothing like an actual market. You’re ...

Articles

The Coastal Act trumps everything?

November 30, 2012 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

Earlier this week, the California Supreme Court ruled in Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Estates v. City of Los Angeles that a mobile home park owner must obtain a coastal development permit under the California Coastal Act if he wishes to convert his park from tenant occupancy to resident ownership.  Pacific Legal Foundation submitted an amicus br ...

Articles

The California Supreme Court gets it right in Proposition 13 case

November 30, 2012 | By JENNIFER THOMPSON

In light of the Court’s recent, disappointing decision in the Pacific Palisades Coastal Commission case, it’s encouraging to note when the Court got it right in Young v. Schmidt.  This was the case brought by former UCLA Chancellor Charles Young challenging Proposition 13’s legislative super-majority vote requirement.  Young m ...

Articles

Koontz receives broad support in his fight to protect property rights

November 29, 2012 | By BRIAN HODGES

Last month, I explained how the U.S. Supreme Court case, Koontz v. St. John’s River Water Management District, has the potential to affect every property owner across the nation. As it turns out, people were listening. Yesterday, our client, Coy Koontz, received nine amicus briefs from 31 organizations supporting Mr. Koontz’s argument t ...

Articles

Michigan AG files cert. petition two weeks after Proposal 2 decision

November 29, 2012 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

That was fast!  After the Sixth Circuit’s horrendous decision striking down Michigan’s equal rights amendment two weeks ago, the Michigan Attorney General filed this certiorari petition yesterday to ask the Supreme Court to take up the case.  Kudos to the AG’s office for this ueber-quick response to an unjustifiable ruling. I ...

Articles

The best commercial of 2012, or, “who’s afraid of commercial speech?”

November 28, 2012 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

A few days ago, AdWeek named this the best commercial of 2012. For about half a century now, the Supreme Court has allowed government to restrict the expressive rights of business owners under the theory of “commercial speech.” The idea is that this is a special kind of speech which can be more stringently regulated … ...