Articles

Does advertising a home “For Sale By Owner” make you a real estate agent?

July 31, 2014 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

That’s what Nebraska bureaucrats think. Meet California entrepreneur Leslie Young. From her home in Northern California, Leslie runs a business called elist.me, which helps people to advertise their homes for sale on a For Sale By Owner basis. If you want to sell your home, you pay a fee and provide her with information about … ...

Articles

Stale thinking, bad decision

July 31, 2014 | By REED HOPPER

For years, the Corps of Engineers has conducted Jurisdictional Determinations on private land.  These JD’s constitute an adjudicative determination as to whether an area has wetlands or other jurisdictional waters subject to regulation under the Clean Water Act.  Projects that result in a discharge of dirt (or other materials) to jurisdicti ...

Articles

Lawmakers kickoff summer recess with a lawsuit bang

July 31, 2014 | By KATE POMEROY

Right before its summer recess, the House voted (225 to 201) to authorize the chamber to sue the President for his failure to faithfully execute the laws, specifically his many suspensions and unilateral re-writes of the Obamacare law. While there are many serious legal issues raised by the proposed House lawsuit, PLF’s Todd Gaziano makes th ...

Articles

Delta smelt developments

July 31, 2014 | By DAMIEN SCHIFF

As we reported last week, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the petitions for rehearing en banc filed by several groups of water-user parties.  Some of those groups this week moved to stay the Ninth Circuit’s mandate, alerting the court to their intention to file a petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme … ...

Articles

Yes, Obamacare is a “bill for raising revenue.” (Lots and lots of revenue.)

July 30, 2014 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

The D.C. Circuit ruled yesterday that the ACA is a tax, but not a “bill for raising revenue,” and therefore is exempt from the Origination Clause, which says all “bills for raising revenue” must begin in the House of Representatives instead of the Senate. The court said that the “main object or aim” of the ̷ ...

Articles

D.C. Circuit rules that Obamacare tax isn’t a “bill for raising revenue”

July 29, 2014 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

This morning, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against our challenge to Obamacare, holding that the individual mandate tax need not have originated in the House of Representatives because it does not qualify as a “bill for raising revenue” under the Constitution. In a relatively short opinion by Judge Judith Rogers, the court hol ...

Articles

Refusing to regulate water use through the endangered species act does not mean water use is unregulated

July 28, 2014 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Last week I commented on the Fifth Circuit’s favorable decision in The Aransas Project v. Shaw.  An interested reader (who also appears to be a member of the plaintiff organization in the Aransas case) posted a reply of sorts, asserting that I “seem to believe there should be no regulation of water from lakes in … ...

Articles

PLF defends school choice in Alabama

July 28, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

PLF has filed an amicus brief in the Alabama Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of school choice in the Heart of Dixie. The Alabama Accountability Act creates a system of tax credits to help parents transfer their kids from failing public schools to better public or private schools. Should be uncontroversial, right? Wrong. The statute w ...

Articles

Join PLF's Timothy Sandefur & the Rio Grande Foundation to celebrate Milton Friedman's legacy

July 28, 2014 | By TIMOTHY SANDEFUR

I’ll be speaking at the Rio Grande Foundation’s annual Milton Friedman Day celebration, at the University of New Mexico Law School in Albuquerque on Thursday. More information here. … ...