Articles

Yesterday, a Fifth Circuit panel issued its opinion in the controversial Texas voter ID case. The case involves challenges under the Voting Rights Act as well as the Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Twenty-Fourth Amendments. Particularly at issue was whether Texas' effort to require that voters present a valid photo ID violates Section 2 of the Voting Ri ...

If species aren't protected under the Endangered Species Act's burdensome approach, they'll receive no protection at all. This is an all too common refrain. But it's a false choice. There are many ways to try to conserve and recover species. The ESA's punitive approach is not the only one, nor even the best one. Take the Utah prairie dog. The incr ...

A few months back, PLF filed this brief in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin urging the Supreme Court to take the case. Our friends at the Center for Equal Opportunity, the American Civil Rights Institute, Project 21, and the National Association of Scholars joined us on the brief. Next week the Court will meet to discuss whether to hear the ...

In October, federal judge Nelva Gonzalez Ramos of the Southern District of Texas issued a far-reaching opinion striking down Texas' new Voter ID law on several grounds. She not only found that the law violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, but also that it was an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote under the Equal Protection Clause, ...

Fans of the Oakland Athletics know that the team has just made a big trade. Supporters of Pacific Legal Foundation know that PLF's Free Enterprise Project defends freedom of contract across the country, including the right of parties to be bound by the words of the contract instead of vague notions of abstract justice. Both contracts and trades ...

The case of Abigail Fisher may be on its way to the Supreme Court a second time.  The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals denied her petition for rehearing en banc. Judge Garza filed a short dissent reiterating the points he made in his panel dissent.  PLF, joined by our friends at the Center for Equal Opportunity, Reason Foundation, Project 21, and the ...

In a recent decision, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals held that Texas' water rights permitting system did not result in illegal take of endangered whooping cranes merely because water was legally diverted from rivers that ultimately flow to one of the rare birds' habitats on the Texas Gulf Coast. This is an important victory for balance and sani ...

Today, the Texas Supreme Court issued an opinion in Porretto v. Patterson, a complicated beach takings case.  The Porrettos have owned a dry beach area in Galveston, Texas, since the 1950's. Some of their property lies just seaward of the Galveston seawall, between the wall and the wet beach area along the Gulf of Texas.  The Porrettos have histori ...

The Texas Supreme Court has announced that it will consider the case of Patel v. Department of Licensing, which raises the issue of what the "rational basis" test means under Texas state constitutional law. Rational basis, of course, is the test that judges use when deciding whether a restriction on economic freedom is constitutional or not. Thi ...