Articles

A year into Texas lawsuit, artist reflects on what her city has lost

October 23, 2024 | By KAY RAY-SMITH

Kay Ray-Smith co-owns Tilt Vision, a mural painting business in Texas, with her husband Brad. Last year they filed a lawsuit against the city for banning their murals. A year into the lawsuit, Kay reflects on how the city not only jeopardized the couple’s livelihood and infringed on their constitutional rights, but also deprived emerging  ...

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PLF wins North America Liberty Award for defeating home equity theft at the Supreme Court

September 13, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

Pacific Legal Foundation’s 2023 Supreme Court victory in Tyler v. Hennepin County changed lives—and is now being recognized for advancing freedom and human progress in America.   For years, local governments across the country manipulated tax forfeiture laws to steal from vulnerable Americans—most of them ill, elderly, jobless, immigra ...

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Tornado forecasting was banned in the U.S. for 60 years. Why? 

September 12, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

Here’s a bizarre piece of American trivia: From 1887 to 1950, the U.S. government banned the word “tornado” from weather forecasts. Warning the public about possible tornadoes would cause panic, officials said. It was better to avoid the word altogether.  The ban applied to all weather forecasters in the government, but there was ...

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Dallas Morning News : Austin restaurateur is challenging Labor Department’s overreach

August 30, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

Writing in The Dallas Morning News, Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys Luke Wake and Frank Garrison discuss the case of Robert Mayfield (which Luke argued at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit Court earlier this month).   From Luke and Frank’s op-ed:  As the owner of 13 Dairy Queen franchises in and around … ...

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Victory for falconer at the Ninth Circuit

August 02, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

Good news for property rights, individual liberty, and the sport of falconry: The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals says falconers’ lawsuit against a California regulation can proceed. Five years ago, master falconer Peter Stavrianoudakis and several others filed a lawsuit challenging the regulation, which requires falconers to sign an agreement ...

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Overcriminalization and the rule of lenity

July 16, 2024 | By WILL FOSTER

In recent decades, the scope of federal law has grown massively. And with that growth has come the risk that Americans will be ensnared in criminal or civil proceedings for activities they had no idea were illegal.   It is often said that ignorance of the law is no excuse, and in general that is … ...

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Big Supreme Court decisions on executive power, agency courts, and the Eighth Amendment

June 28, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

What a way to head into the July 4th holiday: The Supreme Court announced big decisions on the penultimate day of the term—including an end to the doctrine responsible for decades of executive overreach.   Supreme Court overturns Chevron in Loper/Relentless  In today’s decision in Loper Bright Enterprises/Relentless, the Supreme Court ov ...

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Fishing on an ocean ‘antiquity’

June 27, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

“I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.”   —Stubb, the second mate, in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick    In New Bedford, Massachusetts, sits an old chapel: the Seamen’s Bethel, built in 1832 for sailors to visit and pray before heading out to sea. … ...

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What is the soft bigotry of low expectations?

May 23, 2024 | By NICOLE W.C. YEATMAN

In September 1999, then-Governor of Texas George W. Bush gave a speech to the Latin Business Association about education. America needed to adopt the mindset that every child can learn, he said. “It does not matter if they grow up in foster care or a two-parent family. These circumstances are challenges, but they are not … ...