Articles

Judges should not let bureaucrats dictate the meaning of the law

February 01, 2019 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Our nation’s government was structured to ensure that each of the three branches—legislative, judicial, and executive—would be subject to checks and balances with one another. This ingenious interlocking system was intended to ensure accountability and limit abuses of power. But, in recent years, the rise of unchecked power on the part of ...

Articles

It’s time to restrain federal agencies’ power grabs

December 06, 2018 | By JEFF MCCOY

PLF filed a fresh lawsuit today on the heels of our latest Supreme Court victory. Last week, in Weyerhaeuser v. United States Fish and Wildlife Service, a unanimous Supreme Court reaffirmed that agencies are not immune from judicial review of their actions. This wasn’t just a win for PLF and our clients: it was also … ...

Articles

17 states : The time has come to reconsider Chevron deference and this is the case to do it with

July 06, 2018 | By JONATHAN WOOD

As the President prepares to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, one of the major issues likely to turn on that choice is the fate of Chevron deference. According to that infamous doctrine, courts must defer to agency’s interpretations of the statutes they administer unless that interpretation is patently unreasonable. In practice, courts h ...

Articles

Weekly litigation report — March 10, 2018

March 10, 2018 | By JAMES BURLING

Supreme Court grants hugely important property rights case! For over thirty years PLF attorneys have been trying to put an end to the infamous “Williamson County” rule that stops property owners from going to federal court to vindicate their constitutionally guaranteed property rights. Named after a 1985 case where the Court refused to ...

Articles

Legislating through friend of the court briefs

May 04, 2017 | By JEFF MCCOY

As many Pacific Legal Foundation employees have written about before, the power of administrative agencies has increased greatly over the last century. Many Americans are now subject to rules adopted not by elected officials, but by unelected bureaucrats in the “fourth branch of government.” Even worse, it is common practice for courts ...

Articles

The time to review and kill hundreds of rules under the CRA has not yet begun

April 24, 2017 | By TODD GAZIANO

The first part of a recent article in The Hill began like many others, suggesting that the window was “closing for Congress to roll back Obama-era regulations” under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). It focused on the approaching deadline for Congress to vote on CRA joint resolutions of disapproval that were introduced to kill Obama&# ...

Articles

Bureaucrats made accountable to elected officials? Eek!

March 09, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

Our Congressional Review Act project (have you seen the latest at RedTapeRollback.com? Why not?) is starting to ruffle the right feathers: progressive media sites and activists have noticed that their pet regulatory excesses, especially underground rules, are very vulnerable to disapproval under the Congressional Review Act. … ...

Articles

Francois op ed supporting Gorsuch nomination published in the San Francisco Daily Journal

March 05, 2017 | By TONY FRANCOIS

A few weeks ago, Erwin Chemerinsky, noted constitutional scholar and Dean of Law at UC Irvine, published an op ed in the San Francisco Daily Journal arguing that Senate Democrats should filibuster the nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States. Dean Chemerinsky’s piece was long on hyperbole and short on … ...

Articles

Bureaucratic overreach and the separation of powers

February 22, 2017 | By ETHAN BLEVINS

Can federal agencies make up whatever policies they like unless Congress tells them not to? PLF answered an emphatic “no” in an amicus brief filed today to support a petition to the Supreme Court. In National Restaurant Assocation v. Department of Labor, courts allowed the Department to expand its power beyond limits set by Congress. & ...