Issues

There's so much interesting stuff happening at the Court that you get not one, but two scoops of SCOTUS this week. In Part I, I'll discuss all of the opinions that were released over the past two weeks. In Part II, we'll recap some of the wild oral arguments. Let's dig in! Even after the demise of Chevron deference, the government is gonna win som ...

Several years ago, an author defended looting in an NPR interview by arguing, "It's just property. It's not actually hurting any people." That justification stayed with me. How many Americans have forgotten that private property is how human beings implement their freedom in the world? Liberty is not just the freedom to think but also to do – ...

Note: The photo above is of the Sacketts' Idaho property (marked by dotted line), which the EPA claimed was regulable as "navigable water." It's been nearly two years since the Supreme Court ruled for our clients, Chantell and Mike Sackett, in the landmark Clean Water Act case Sackett v. EPA. Yet the government still isn't complying with the jus ...

The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Wednesday in the case of FCC v. Consumers' Research, which involves a nondelegation challenge to the Telecommunications Act of 1996. PLF filed an amicus brief in the case—because the nondelegation doctrine, which says Congress cannot delegate its lawmaking responsibilities, is key to PLF's fight for the co ...

The Supreme Court's ghost guns decision in Bondi v. Vanderstok centers on a fundamental question of American law: What happens when federal agencies reinterpret decades-old statutes to expand their own power? The justices considered whether, under the Gun Control Act of 1968, Congress authorized ATF to regulate gun parts kits—often called "ghost ...

On Tuesday, March 18, 2025, President Donald Trump summarily fired two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission. This would be an unremarkable occurrence at the start of a new presidential administration, except Congress restricted the president's ability to fire commissioners to instances of "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance ...

A few years ago, Jennifer Butler unexpectedly became a single mom to two young kids. At that time, she was working only a few hours a week while homeschooling them. But as an independent contractor, she was quickly able to pick up projects and cobble together meaningful work, following a schedule that suited her needs, so that she could continue ho ...

This week, the Arizona Court of Appeals closed the loop on the state's recent legislative mandate for de novo review of agency decisions, officially ending substantial-evidence deference to agency-found facts. In doing so, the court followed Pacific Legal Foundation's constitutional avoidance argument presented in our amicus brief and noted that bo ...

A shocking eminent domain scandal is unfolding in Johnston, Rhode Island: Last week, the Town secretly took possession of a family's 31-acre property, only notifying the owners afterward in a letter demanding they "remove all vehicles and other personal belongings from the property immediately" or they'd be served with a no trespass notice. "I w ...