Santa Barbara | Ranch owners fight legislation that gives the government unfettered access to private, sensitive coastal land and potentially punishes owners for defending their way of life
Case Status: Active: Federal lawsuit filed to protect private ranch property and a unique way of life Hollister Ranch, California, is widely known for its 150 years as a working cattle ranch and for its biologically significant coastal habitat spread across miles of shoreline downcoast of California’s Point Conception. Over the years, the ranch has carefully […]
The Founding Fathers of our limited government: Thomas Jefferson and the freedom of speech
By TIMOTHY SNOWBALL This is the fifth in a five-part series dedicated to exploring the lives, ideas, and contributions of the five individuals most directly responsible for the founding of the United States. Without the courageous actions of James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson, America would not be the country that it is today. […]
Property owners move to intervene in navigable waters challenge
San Francisco: Today an Idaho couple filed a motion to intervene in California’s challenge to the Trump Administration’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule. For more than 13 years, Mike and Chantell Sackett have fought the EPA for the right to build a house on their residential lot in Priest Lake, Idaho. That fight took them all […]
BUSINESS | Virtual Event: Get Government Out of the Way So America Can Recover
You’re invited to join Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) and National Review Institute (NRI) for a virtual event. How to Get Government Out of the Way So America Can Rebuild from COVID-19 May 28, 2020 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EDT, 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. PDT RSVP FOR ZOOM LINK The current crisis has spared nobody […]
California bans license plates “OG” and “QUEER”; hit with new lawsuit
A lawsuit filed today challenges the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ arbitrary censorship of speech on personalized license plates. After Chris Ogilvie was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army following four tours overseas, including in Iraq and Afghanistan, he bought a new car and applied for a personalized license plate that read “OGWOOLF.” The plate […]
Bureaucrats can’t rewrite the law just because they don’t like it
Jack LaPant thought that he had properly navigated all the necessary regulations under the federal Clean Water Act when he plowed his northern California farmland in 2011 to grow wheat. Multiple agencies said he did not need a permit; but in 2016, government bureaucrats sued Jack for not obtaining a permit, even though the Clean […]
California’s “woman quota” targeted in new lawsuit | Fighting California’s discriminatory law
A lawsuit filed today challenges California’s first-in-the-nation requirement that publicly traded companies have a certain number of women on their boards of directors. “This law puts equal numbers above equal treatment,” said Anastasia Boden, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “This law is built on the condescending belief that women aren’t capable of getting […]
Family challenges government’s arbitrary, unlawful permit conditions
In 2018, the Wall family wanted to build a swimming pool next to their home on their property in Hollister Ranch, California. Like all land owners within the 14,500-acre, century-old working cattle ranch, the Walls needed a permit. Santa Barbara County approved the project; however, the California Coastal Commission denied the permit. The Commission said […]
The First Amendment protects the emoji house and the ‘Starry Night’ house
By JEREMY TALCOTT A Manhattan Beach duplex with a unique paint job has been mired in controversy. A few months ago, Manhattan Beach resident Kathryn Kidd hired a local artist named Z the Art to paint her house in a bright pink color with a pair of cheeky emoji faces. While Kidd enjoys the house, her neighbors […]
A Rancher’s property rights and the right to conserve
By TONY FRANCOIS The Clean Water Act (CWA) is supposed to protect and enhance our nation’s waters. But too often, government bureaucrats use that broad mandate to stomp on private landowners’ property rights—even when those private landowners are trying to protect the land themselves. In a bitter twist, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using the […]
