Washington Examiner : How Congress can claw back its oversight power
After decades of Congress delegating its responsibility to pass laws to unelected bureaucrats, legislators in the current session are flexing their oversight powers. To date, 22 rules coming from the executive branch have been directly struck down by the legislative branch. An impressive number, to be sure, but that should just be the opening salvo ...
Yale Journal on Regulation : Doomsday Predictions About Jarkesy Just Don’t Add Up
In response to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2024 decision in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy, a NYU Law Professor wrote in The Atlantic, "Jarkesy continues the Court's attack on the federal government's capacity to do many of its most basic jobs." This captured the sentiment among many who felt that this decision, which affirmed the ri ...
With Jarkesy’s dire consequences unfounded, restoring due process is now both essential and manageable
In 2024, the Supreme Court handed down its ruling in SEC v. Jarkesy and held that when federal agencies seek to punish Americans, those Americans have the right to have their case heard by a real judge and jury—not the agency's own in-house tribunal. Some legal commentators predicted catastrophe. And some law professors warned the decision thr ...
Judge’s ruling protects due process rights of Californians caught in federal registration trap
On April 9, a federal judge issued a permanent injunction blocking the Department of Justice from prosecuting California residents under a federal sex-offender registration law without first confirming with the state that those individuals are required to register in the first place. PLF represents a group of plaintiffs who are caught in a bind ...
A court finally tells FinCEN there is nothing questionable about buying in cash
When a federal court struck down FinCEN's real estate surveillance rule, Celia Flowers finally got an answer to the question that had been haunting her business for two years: Could the government force her to hand over her clients' private information? In 2024, the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) finaliz ...
A federal agency prosecuted an Oklahoma baby product company for four years and came up empty
In 2015, a daycare worker left an infant unsupervised with a bottle in his mouth for 45 minutes, flouting daycare policy, state regulation, and the explicit warnings on the product the baby was placed in. Tragically, the infant died. The daycare lost its license and shut down. Three years later, another infant was placed on an adult bed, in betw ...
The Charleston Post and Courier : South Carolina can modernize regulation and grow faster
South Carolina's economy is strong. But from the Lowcountry to the Upstate, anyone who has tried to start or expand a business knows red tape isn't an abstraction. It shows up as thousands of sometimes-subtle costs — time, fees, delays, uncertainty — to comply with state rules and regulations. Added up, this substantially slows economic growth. ...
A Hawaii dolphin therapist’s case could shape the Comey and James appeal
Six months ago, James Comey and Letitia James had likely never heard of PLF client Eliza Wille or her dolphin therapy practice in Kona, Hawaii. Now, as the government fights to revive their indictments before the Fourth Circuit, their fates are closely tied to the psychotherapist's legal battle to save her business. Pacific Legal Foundation file ...
American Heroes : Beating Illegal Tariffs with Eva St. Clair and Rebecca Melsky
An episode of American Heroes with Kathy Hoekstra you won't want to miss! After the blockbuster Supreme Court ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the president to impose sweeping tariffs, Kathy sits down with Eva St. Clair and Rebecca Melsky, co-founders of Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder, two busines ...