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A (mostly) victory when it comes to Alabama spying on your beer habits

September 30, 2016 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Yesterday the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board decided against adopting a creepy rule which would have required craft breweries to record the names, phone numbers, addresses, and birthdays of anyone who purchases craft beer for carryout.  As I detailed in this comment letter and this Forbes piece, the proposed rule was a burdensome a ...

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Forbes publishes piece on (yet another) creepy, anti-competitive law

September 27, 2016 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Forbes has published my piece on Alabama’s proposed rule allowing the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board to creep on craft beer consumers.  Although the Board says the rule is a way for it to enforce the state’s rigid controls on how much craft breweries can sell, those familiar with occupational licensing laws may suspect that the R ...

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School choice is a boon for taxpayers

January 27, 2015 | By JONATHAN WOOD

People support school choice for many reasons. Most support it because it’s the last best hope for their children to get a decent education. Some hope that it is a means to mitigate the impacts of racial and income segregation. Still others support it as an alternative to the highly-politicized resolution of sensitive religious and … ...

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PLF files brief in the Supreme Court opposing race-based redistricting

October 16, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

We have previously blogged about the latest redistricting controversy to reach the Supreme Court. In these two combined cases, styled Alabama Legislative Black Caucus v. Alabama and Alabama Democratic Conference v. Alabama, the plaintiffs contend that the redistricting plan for the Alabama Senate and House of Representatives is an unconstitutional ...

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School choice saves money

August 19, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

Government spends $632 billion a year on public schools. That’s almost 20% of all government spending. Although most of the focus of Back to School Choice Week is, rightly, on the benefits to students, school choice also promises to bring that number down substantially. As PLF recently explained in a brief to the Alabama Supreme … ...

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PLF defends school choice in Alabama

July 28, 2014 | By JONATHAN WOOD

PLF has filed an amicus brief in the Alabama Supreme Court defending the constitutionality of school choice in the Heart of Dixie. The Alabama Accountability Act creates a system of tax credits to help parents transfer their kids from failing public schools to better public or private schools. Should be uncontroversial, right? Wrong. The statute w ...

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#Back2SchoolChoice — What are tax credits?

August 21, 2013 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

When most people hear about school choice, they typically think about vouchers.  Vouchers are basically a check that parents receive from the state that they can use to send their children to private schools.  The check, or “voucher,” can be used by parents to send their children to either sectarian or secular schools.  The anti-cho ...

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Finger on the pulse : school choice in Alabama

June 21, 2013 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

In February, the Alabama legislature enacted the Alabama Accountability Act—a school choice measure aimed at giving tax credits to families who, because of their school district, must send their children to “failing schools,” but who wish to enroll in a non-failing private or public school.  Twenty four states have passed school ch ...

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The road to the tort underworld is paved with innovator liability

June 14, 2013 | By ANASTASIA BODEN

Tapping their seemingly endless supply of ingenuity, plaintiffs’ lawyers have come up with a new legal theory for reaching deep pockets, and just the name would send chills up the spine of Steve Jobs, Henry Ford, or Jonas Salk.  Under the theory of “innovator liability,” manufacturers of brand-name drugs can be held liable for in ...