Articles

Originally published by The Hill, October 1, 2018. If you were to quiz the average American about the liberties protected under the Bill of Rights, many would readily cite freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms. But most may not recall that property rights protections were included in the Constitution … ...

This week to start its new term the Supreme Court heard argument on Pacific Legal Foundation’s case popularly-known as Weyerhaeuser Co. v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. I say popularly-known because although the case involves the large timber company Weyerhaeuser, at bottom the case speaks to how our client Edward Poitevent and his family ...

This morning the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Gundy v. United States. At issue in Gundy is a constitutionally impermissible re-delegation of legislative power from Congress to the Attorney General, under which the Attorney General is empowered to decide, without the slightest guiding “intelligible principle” from Congress, the ...

Yesterday, PLF submitted a letter urging Minnesota to ensure that its election officials are enforcing the law within the confines of the Supreme Court’s decision in Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky. In June, the Supreme Court struck down a Minnesota statute that had prohibited wearing any “political badge, political button, or other ...

Yesterday, PLF submitted the latest  in a series of public comment letters regarding amendments to the Local Coastal Program in Marin County, CA. Local governments situated on California’s coast may prepare such programs under the California Coastal Act. A Local Coastal Program consists of both a Land Use Plan and an Implementation Plan, an ...

A shy frog becomes the center of attention at the Supreme Court This week the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral argument in our Endangered Species Act case known as Weyerhaeuser Company v. United States Fish & Wildlife Service. The Court accepted the case to consider two questions. First, whether the federal government … ...

Originally published by The Hill, October 8, 2018. The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is the nation’s most popular environmental law. In a time when Americans seemingly are divided on everything, there is nearly unanimous support for the goal of recovering rare species. Unfortunately, that popularity has not translated into the political will t ...

Originally published in the Daily Journal, October 8, 2018.  This term the Supreme Court has a chance to overturn a decades-old decision that kept many property owners out of federal courts. Thirty-three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a serious blow to the constitutional rights of private property owners nationwide. A court decision to ...

Over the the last several months, I repeatedly have been asked what a Justice Kavanaugh would mean both for PLF cases specifically and the law in general. Now that the possibility has become reality, let’s consider the answers to those questions and a few other questions posed by his recent Senate confirmation. Perhaps most important … ...