A Supreme Court preview : PLF cases at the long conference
The Supreme Court formally begins its new fall term with oral arguments on October 5. It will hold its "long conference" the week prior to consider the petitions submitted during its summer recess. This year, the Justices will consider three PLF petitions challenging warrantless surveillance and compelled speech. A lobsterman's fight for his Fourt ...
The Hill : Data center hysteria is our latest group chat gone wild
Remember 2018, when every city council, major airline, and coffee giant suddenly decided that plastic sip-lids were the frontline of planetary salvation? It was the great Plastic Straw Panic. Celebrities made somber videos, corporate PR teams scrambled, and public policy shifted on a dime. The entire crusade was built on an eye-popping stat repe ...
American Heroes : Lindsay Hoopes fights to save her family’s Napa winery
Lindsay Hoopes never planned to run her family's Napa winery. But when her father became seriously ill, she came home to carry on what he had built. Now she's fighting to save it. In this episode of American Heroes, Lindsay sits down with Kathy Hoekstra to tell the story herself: How a dispute with Napa County over wine tastings and other win ...
Municipal-securities advisor takes his jury trial fight to a federal appeals court
On September 17, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit heard oral arguments in Choice Advisors, LLC, and Matthias O'Meara v. Securities and Exchange Commission—a case that will help decide whether the SEC can strip Americans of their right to make a living through its own in-house courts. PLF senior attorney Oliver Dunford argued bef ...
239 years later, the Constitution still depends on the people
On September 17, 1787, delegates in Philadelphia signed the finalized U.S. Constitution. Two hundred thirty-nine years later, Constitution Day seems to hit a little harder than it has before. Perhaps it's because we just celebrated America's 250th birthday two months ago. Or maybe it's because we lost constitutional scholar Gordon S. Wood a few wee ...
USA Today : Medicare now covers CBD, but Congress wants to ban it
A new Medicare pilot program covers hemp-derived cannabidiol (CBD) products to treat certain patients, even as Congress is moving forward with a law that will effectively wipe those same products off the market. The resulting policy quagmire threatens patient access, undermines the work of entrepreneurs and highlights a deeper truth: Hemp alread ...
The Washington Post : ‘Black boxes’ on lobster boats set a dangerous precedent for America
Eating enough lobster could kill me; eating even a little could ruin my day. Nevertheless, I took two flights and drove 85 miles up the rainy Maine coast to get from Sacramento to the Maine Lobster Festival. My work usually takes me to public policy conferences. This time, I found myself sitting in a sprawling market, surrounded by vendors selli ...
Justice Gorsuch charts the path to “return, all the way, to the Constitution”
Last term, the Supreme Court took a major step toward restoring the separation of powers. In Trump v. Slaughter, the Court ruled that congressional limitations on the president's authority to remove commissioners of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are unconstitutional. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, "Subordinates who exercise the Presid ...
National Review : It’s Not Just the Economics, Stupid
In her new book, Fusionism: Liberty, Virtue, and the Future of the American Right, Stephanie Slade sets out to describe and recover a political philosophy that faded in the years after it succeeded. Fusionism helped shape the movement that Ronald Reagan led. But what it fused — liberty and virtue — came apart over the four decades since he left ...