New York Post : Congress’ housing bill isn’t enough to fix California’s problems
This weekend, the most substantive housing bill in decades took effect without President Donald Trump's signature. The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act has been described as the most ambitious federal housing legislation in a generation. Everyone understands that housing is too expensive in many places today because we don't build enough of it. ...
The battle isn’t over : What Pung means for the fight against home equity theft
Near the end of this year's term, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Pung v. Isabella County, rejecting the argument that the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause requires government to pay fair market value to homeowners when it seizes and sells their homes to collect a tax debt. That was the question presented in the case, and the Court ...
National Review : The Supreme Court’s Chance to Revive a Neglected Civil Right
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court will hear argument in Sheetz v. County of El Dorado. It is the fourth in a series of cases since 1987 involving the application of the unconstitutional conditions doctrine to the Takings Clause and land-use permits, namely, Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987), Dolan v. City of Tigard (1994), and Koontz v. St ...
The Dispatch : The Supreme Court Can Fix Its Oldest Mistake This Year
Ursula Newell-Davis has been a social worker in New Orleans for more than 20 years with a particular passion for special needs children (including her own), so she knows special needs families are often desperate for affordable and reliable respite care. It allows parents time to work, run errands, or just attend to themselves, confident that their ...
Apocalyptic environmentalists want fewer humans on earth
Last July, two climate change activists, glued their hands to the 540-year-old Botticelli painting Primavera at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. The painting, which depicts mythical figures in a green garden, is one of the most studied and praised in Western Civilization. It is thought to be an allegory about the abundance of nature. A thi ...
Orange County Register : More homes (not more government) needed to make housing affordable
Nearly everyone today recognizes that housing costs are too high in California. With a median home price over one million dollars in Orange County, even upper-middle-class families face the reality of their kids and grandkids moving on mass to states where housing costs don't eclipse every other need. The past few years of price increases (both hom ...
The Dispatch : Want affordable housing? Build more homes.
There is agreement today across the ideological spectrum that the cost of housing is too high. The share of all Americans paying more than 30, 40, or even 50 percent of their monthly income on housing has been growing for a very long time, and the cost of housing nearly everywhere has outpaced income growth year-over-year for decades. One can ma ...
Multiple media outlets make errors about upcoming Supreme Court case Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid
On March 22, PLF will argue at the Supreme Court of the United States what has become the most contentious property rights dispute in the nation, Cedar Point Nursery v Hassid. This case centers around a controversial California regulation that allows union organizers to enter (without permission) private farms for up to 3 hours a day, 120 days a ye ...
America’s individualist Constitution
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2017 issue of Pacific Legal Foundation's quarterly magazine Sword&Scales. PLF exists to establish a rule of law under which all Americans may live free in their pursuit of happiness. We fight to preserve and advance the American ideals of individualism and liberty, and our mission has never been mor ...