Articles

The road to economic freedom is a little bit wider today, thanks to a decision by Illinois Circuit Judge Rebecca Foley who last week* struck down the city of Bloomington’s anticompetitive licensing law for taxicabs. Agreeing with our friend of the court brief, Judge Foley ruled that the city ordinance—which bars anyone from entering the &# ...

PLF friend Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity, has an excellent op-ed in today’s Washington Times.  In it he argues that the time has come for the Supreme Court to rein in discrimination in public employment and public contracting.  Shelby County was a blow to discrimination in voting.  Fisher w ...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently published a proposed rule to “downlist” the Santa Cruz cypress from “endangered” to “threatened” status under the Endangered Species Act.  The proposal comes in response to a petition from PLF, which was based on a 2009 Service report that recommended the cypress for r ...

FIELD and STREAM is sporting a breathless editorial online today entitled Wetlands Guidance? That’s Crazy Talk Apparently The editorial bemoans the fact that the Obama Administration has not issued a final version of its proposed Wetlands Guidance in response to a 2006 U.S. Supreme Court decision that purportedly “ruled that Congress ne ...

Last week, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service finalized amendments to the Services’ joint regulations governing the designation of critical habitat.  (PLF filed critical comments on the proposed changes).  Specifically, the amendments affect when and how the Services assess the economic i ...

PLF attorneys filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court this week arguing that the Fair Housing Act does not allow discrimination cases under a disparate impact theory.  The case is Township of Mount Holly v. Mount Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, U.S. Supreme Court, No.11-1507.  The Center for Equal Opportunity, Competitive Enterprise Institut ...

Despite the Supreme Court’s pronouncement that “contract is a matter of consent, not coercion,” and accordingly, contracts must be enforced according to their terms, many courts across the country still show an unwillingness to enforce contracts that contain class action waivers or arbitration provisions.  One of the biggest assa ...

Environment — Oysters  The Ninth Circuit issued this adverse decision in Drakes Bay Oyster Company v. Jewell.  This involves the National Park Service’s drive to shut down a long-established oyster farm in Drakes Bay, off  the coast of Northern California.  When a National Park was established the preexisting oyster farm was given  ...

Saturday’s Contra Costa TImes carried this article about Plan Bay Area and the lawsuit that PLF has brought on behalf of Bay Area Citizens challenging the process by which it was adopted. Excerpt: Public policy must be made in a way that allows informed public participation. But Plan Bay Area was drafted by agenda-driven insiders. … ...