Articles

St. Louis, MO.; April 26, 2012 — Tomorrow morning (April 27), PLF Principal Attorney Timothy Sandefur will present arguments in federal court challenging the constitutionality of a Missouri law that requires an entrepreneur to essentially get permission from his or her own competition before starting a moving company.  Representing St. Louis ...

Last month the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) slapped several innovative ridesharing businesses with cease and desist orders for illegally operating as charter-party carriers without CPUC’s permission. SideCar is one of the companies that received such a letter and the business adamantly denies that it is in violation of the l ...

Bill Callegari, Chairman of the Texas House Government Efficiency and Reform Committee, recently filed bills that could have positive ramifications for economic liberty in Texas.  According to this article, two bills by Callegari could affect any occupational license: “One would provide a mechanism for phasing out licenses deemed unnecessary ...

Recently the Des Moines Register published a series of articles that sheds light on the problems caused by unnecessary and irrational occupational licensing laws.  In one recent opinion piece, Darrell Hanson, a former Iowa legislator, describes his first-hand experience with how such schemes harm consumer interests. … ...

PLF’s Economic Liberty Project has taken several cases throughout the country that challenge protectionist occupational licensing laws in the moving industry–our latest being Underwood v. Mackay. Last week we filed an emergency pleading in that case, in which PLF attorneys are asking for a temporary restraining order to prevent the gove ...

Last week our friends at the Reason Foundation posted an article about occupational licensing in California.  The post reveals that the Golden State leads the nation in two troubling areas: (1) the number of occupations requiring an individual to obtain a state license; and (2) the burdensome requirements to obtain those licenses.  The author con ...

As the country recognizes its veterans, many veterans continue to battle high rates of unemployment.  Despite the fact that veterans do very well once they are in the workplace, many obstacles prevent them from working.  One of the most glaring obstacles is the continued presence of licensing regimes, which prevent skilled veterans from using the ...

Milwaukee resident Ghaleb Ibrahim simply wants to own and operate his own taxicab.  But that city’s ordinance denies him the right to earn a living as a taxicab driver—not because he is unqualified, but because Milwaukee capped the amount of available permits in 1992.  That cap wasn’t based on any ratio of drivers to populati ...

In the last month, taxi drivers around the world have shut down city streets to protest against competition from Uber.* Traffic in major European cities ground to a halt last week. This followed in the wake of a similar demonstration in Boston last month. The taxi drivers’ objections are as predictable as they are unfounded: … ...