Articles

PLF gets into a Santa suit to fight for free speech This week, PLF filed a lawsuit against the Washington Department of Ecology for kicking Santa out of their public lobby because they didn’t like him spreading Christmas cheer. We’re representing Freedom Foundation, a right-to-work think tank that sends canvassers out to state agencies ...

For nearly the entirety of Pacific Legal Foundation’s history, Justice Kennedy has been on the bench. We first appeared before him when he was a judge on the Ninth Circuit and PLF was mostly litigating in California. And then, for the past 30 years, PLF attorneys argued before him many times at the Supreme Court … ...

Earlier today, Pacific Legal Foundation filed a friend of the court brief in the appellate courts of New Jersey opposing that state’s failed attempt at an unconstitutional land grab in Atlantic City. PLF proudly supports attorney Robert McNamara and the Institute for Justice as IJ fights the good fight for its client, Charlie Birnbaum. The ...

Martin Anderson, who served as an advisor to the Reagan Administration and as a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, died this week at the age of 78. Although many obituaries note his White House work and his later scholarship on President Reagan’s life, it’s worth remembering that Anderson was also one of the first scholars ̷ ...

Last week, the Utah Supreme Court revived a challenge to the Utah Department of Transportation’s abuse of eminent domain. The Department needed a small part (1.2 acres) of a larger parcel (15 acres) for a light rail project. Instead of condemning the part of the property necessary for the project, the Department decided to take … ...

When the infamous Kelo v. New London was decided in 2005, California was already one of the worst states in the nation when it came to eminent domain. In the five years leading up to that decision, California had used or threatened eminent domain against home and business owners some 858 times for the benefit … ...

Supporters of property rights will no doubt remember the sad saga of Kelo v. New London. In  that case, the Supreme Court permitted the city to use its eminent domain power to condemn the homes of Suzette Kelo and her neighbors to make way for a “high-end residential district”—which would adjoin a new Pfizer plant in the ̷ ...

I’ll be talking with Armstrong & Getty at 8 this morning about the efforts by California local governments to use eminent domain to seize “underwater” mortgages. You can listen online here. Update: You can listen to the podcast recording here. … ...

Some local governments in southern California are considering using eminent domain to condemn “underwater” mortgages, so as to allow people who bought houses they can’t afford to continue living in those houses; the whole scheme funded with money raised by yet more government indebtedness. As long-time PLF friend Gideon Kanner exp ...