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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Seattle City Council issued a resolution calling on state and federal government to “impose an immediate moratorium on residential and commercial rent payments…such that no Seattleite should be required to pay rent during this health emergency or accumulate debt for unpaid rent.” This extreme ...

Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order with far-reaching implications for regulatory agency enforcement procedures and for the rule of law generally. Most press attention has focused on provisions of the order encouraging temporary regulatory suspensions to promote economic recovery. Although the economic relief provisions are ...

In the ongoing war between President Trump and social media, the casualty may be social media as we know it. President Trump erupted with rage when Twitter posted a fact check of two of his tweets on mail-in voting. In a series of tweets, President Trump revived long-simmering accusations that social media platforms display anti-conservative ̷ ...

To better understand the recent surge of criticism and resistance against government-mandated lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, take a closer look at the Commerce Department jobs report published last week. In April, the United States lost a staggering 20.5 million jobs, with the unemployment rate skyrocketing to 14.7 percent. Those numbers sugges ...

The Trump administration published this spring its new definition of “navigable waters” (also known as “waters of the United States”) under the Clean Water Act. The long-awaited action reversed course on decades of bureaucratic overreach by the Environmental Protection Agency and by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the EPA& ...

In an emergency order, Florida’s Surgeon General Scott Rivkees has suspended Florida’s Certificate of Need requirement for ambulances. This is an encouraging development for both consumers and healthcare entrepreneurs, and a change that the state legislature should make permanent. As PLF explained in a letter to Governor Ron DeSantis, o ...

In early March 2020, Luis Ramirez closed his Hartford, CT, nail salon, following Gov. Ned Lamont’s executive orders for statewide shutdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Luis and his wife, Rosiris, have since struggled to earn income and pay rent on their salon. When Luis and Rosiris thought they’d be able to reopen on May 20, they scrap ...

Hartford, Connecticut; June 9, 2020: The owner of a nail salon filed a lawsuit yesterday against Connecticut’s continued shutdown of his business. Even as many businesses in the state are allowed to open with specific safety measures in place, nail salons have been forced to keep their doors closed.  Luis Ramirez closed his Hartford nail &# ...

A recent executive order meant to free up the economy following the COVID-19-related lockdowns contains a little-noticed, but potentially powerful, long-term reform that should help rein in regulatory abuse that’s commonplace throughout administrative agencies. Contrary to those who claim that these regulators merely enforce commonsense rules ...

The killing of George Floyd has sparked protests and discussions of race, police abuse, and criminal justice reform across the country. George Floyd’s killing has also sparked discussions of a legal doctrine called “qualified immunity” that government bureaucrats and regulatory officers have used as a legal defense to violate peop ...