Courting Liberty

The Supreme Court announced that it will hear a First Amendment challenge to Minnesota’s sweeping, speech-stifling restrictions on what can be worn while voting. Represented free of charge by Pacific Legal Foundation, concerned residents like Andy Cilek are targeting the state’s unconstitutional prohibition on wearing anything to the polls that might be interpreted as even slightly ideological, even if it has no relation to any candidate, ballot measure, or political party. The case challenges a Minnesota law that forbids voters from wearing any “political badge, political button, or other political insignia.” Officials have interpreted this open-ended language to cover messages that merely express a general social or philosophical outlook. As the government itself noted at oral argument, Minnesota’s broad political apparel ban encompasses any shirt with the logo of the Chamber of Commerce or the AFL-CIO. In this week's episode of PLF's Courting Liberty podcast, hear from case attorney Wen Fa and client Andy Cilek as they break down the importance and gravity of their fight for free speech.

In a bitterly disappointing decision, Judge Beth Andrus granted Seattle’s motion to dismiss our clients’ First Amendment challenge to the city’s democracy-voucher program. Judge Andrus held that forcing property owners to pay for private residents’ campaign contributions does not burden property owners’ speech rights. Seattle’s new “democracy voucher” program flouts the First Amendment by forcing property owners, through a new tax, to subsidize other people’s political campaign donations and fund candidates not of their choosing. During each local election cycle, Seattle residents are each entitled to four $25 vouchers, which they can contribute to candidates for city council and city attorney. Candidates must abide by spending limits, among other mandates, to be eligible. The program will eventually be extended to the mayor’s race. Funding comes from a new property tax levied specifically for this program. In this week's episode of PLF's Courting Liberty podcast, hear from case attorney Ethan Blevins about this decision and how First Amendment rights include both the right to speak and the right not to speak.

“We were blindsided by the city,” said PLF client David Garrett. “You deserve at least a phone call or letter from the government—and an opportunity for a hearing—before it sends over a bulldozer. The city’s failure to contact us was simply outrageous.” When David and Lourdes Garrett purchased a neglected townhouse from the City of New Orleans in 2015, they had plans to renovate it and rent it out. But they never had a chance. Approximately four months after the acquisition, the City demolished the building. It provided the Garretts with no prior notice, hearing, or opportunity to repair. Hear from David Garrett as he details his constitutional challenge to these abuses of their fundamental property rights and due process rights.

Book Passage, a renowned Bay Area bookseller, filed a constitutional lawsuit in May against onerous new state restrictions that made it extremely risky, if not impossible, for stores to sell autographed books or host author events, like the more than 700 book signings hosted by Book Passage each year. After PLF and Book Passage owner Bill Petrocelli filed suit, California has now rescinded the state’s onerous “certificate of authenticity” requirement for the sale of autographed books. Hear directly from Bill and case attorney Anastasia Boden about the impact of this victory for freedom, common sense, and Bill's right to be an upstanding small business owner.

Hear directly from PLF client Kaiden Johnson and his mother, Miranda Lynch, as they explain their willingness to fight for the right that school athletics can’t turn kids away based on their sex. Kaiden Johnson is a 15-year-old sophomore male student at Superior High School of Superior, Wisconsin. Kaiden has danced competitively for eight years, and a year ago successfully competed for Superior High’s varsity dance team. Because the city of Superior borders Minnesota, Superior High’s athletics teams primarily compete against five Minnesota high schools located in the Duluth, Minnesota metropolitan area; Superior High and these Minnesota schools, along with one other Wisconsin high school, comprise the Lake Superior Conference, a division of the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL). At a Lake Superior Conference dance competition held this past December, Kaiden was prohibited from competing with his team based on his sex. MSHSL officials in charge of the competition forced Superior High’s dance team to comply with the league’s designation of dance as a female-only sport, consequently prohibiting Kaiden from competing due to his sex.

Pacific Legal Foundation attorneys Jonathan Wood and Damien Schiff have a conversation with Collin Callahan about the Utah prairie dog, a rare species of rodent found in Southwestern Utah. For decades, federal Endangered Species Act regulations have forbidden state biologists from doing what is best for the species and local residents from doing things that most of us take for granted in our own communities.

PLF's Vice President for Litigation Jim Burling hosts a discussion with PLF President and CEO Steven D. Anderson about the dawn of an exciting new time at Pacific Legal Foundation. Jim and Steven set the table for an expanded vision of PLF's future of fighting for Americans rights nationwide and affecting change that will reverberate throughout the Country and make Pacific Legal Foundation forever synonymous with defending liberty and justice for all.

PLF's Harold Johnson hosts a discussion with PLF Senior Attorney Brian Hodges about the city of Seattle's new money making scheme that is certain to effect all Seattle taxpayers. The City of Seattle enacted an income tax targeting those making in excess of $250,000 per year with a 2.25% tax rate, setting a 0% rate for everyone else. Sold as a “wealth tax,” the City’s income tax aims to punish achievement and success, while threatening poor and middle class families who could fall subject to new city, county, and state taxes if Seattle’s actions go unchallenged. In a complaint filed on behalf of several Seattle residents, PLF argues that the City knowingly violated the law and is attempting to subvert its citizens’ rights by seeking to exclude ‘income’ from the state constitutional protections for property.

Collin Callahan hosts an insightful discussion with PLF D.C. Center Executive Director Todd Gaziano and PLF Attorney Jonathan Wood about the conclusion of an extensive, public review of national monuments by Department of Interior and Secretary Zinke. The agency has not disclosed its recommendations for individual monuments, which will be made public after the President reviews them. But the report leaves no doubt that past Antiquities Act abuse has been a serious problem and that President Trump has the authority to modify existing monument boundaries, including significant reductions in size if necessary or appropriate to comply with the text and purpose of the Act.

PLF's Director of Communications Harold Johnson leads a discussion with PLF Senior Attorney Tony Francois about how Duarte Nursery, its president John Duarte, and Pacific Legal Foundation and their co-counsel have agreed to a settlement with the United States in the federal government’s nearly five-year enforcement action over Duarte’s routine action of plowing its property to plant wheat in late 2012. Under the agreement, Duarte would admit no liability, pay the government $330,000 in a civil penalty, purchase $770,000 worth of vernal pool mitigation credits, and perform additional work on the site of the plowing.

PLF Director of Communications Harold Johnson hosts a discussion with PLF Attorney Oliver Dunford and Kirk Wilbur, Director of Government Relations with the California Cattlemen's Association about how Federal officials illegally ignored the economic impacts on small businesses, landowners, agriculture, and local governments last year when they set aside 1.8-million acres in Central and Northern California as “critical habitat” for the Yosemite toad and two yellow-legged frog species in the Sierra Nevada. A lawsuit filed against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service challenges these sweeping habitat designations because the agency did not comply with the Regulatory Flexibility Act (RFA). That statute requires comprehensive economic analysis before new federal rules can be imposed that could significantly affect small business and small government entities. PLF filed the challenge on behalf of three statewide organizations with members who are affected by the habitat designations — the California Cattlemen’s Association, California Farm Bureau Federation, and California Wool Growers Association.

PLF Attorney Jonathan Wood hosts a discussion with PLFs D.C. Center Executive Director Todd Gaziano and Robert Alt of The Buckeye Institute to discuss how PLF and like-minded organizations are suggesting how President Trump and the current administration can use the Congressional Review Act (CRA) more aggressively to overturn burdensome regulations. Many have said that the window to use the CRA to undo regulations has closed. However, a coalition of liberty-minded public policy and legal organizations have joined forces to challenge that notion. PLF recently launched a revamped Red Tape Rollback website and is advocating an expanded use of the Congressional Review Act — potentially paving the way for hundreds of rules to be reconsidered.

Pacific Legal Foundation's Harold Johnson talks with Nancy Speed of the American Federation of Aviculture, Inc. (AFA) and PLF Attorney Christina Martin about the potential delisting of the Golden Conure, a bird bred to be pets. In 2014, the American Federation of Aviculture, Inc. (AFA), filed a petition to delist the golden conure (Guaruba guarouba), also known as the golden parakeet (Aratinga guarouba), which the Service classified as endangered in 1976. The golden conure is native to Brazil, but some members of the AFA own and breed these birds. The AFA wants the bird delisted because, under current regulations, an owner must get a take permit from the Service to move or sell the bird, which increases the cost and difficulty of breeding these birds. The AFA’s petition relied partly on scholarly estimates that the population of the bird has grown from 1,000-2,500 when it was listed to 10,000-20,000.

PLF's Creative Director Brian Feulner joins client and turkey farmer Willie Benedetti and PLF attorney Jeremy Talcott from Benedetti's Ranch in Marin County to discuss how the County’s new forced-farming mandate denies building permits to landowners in the coastal agricultural zone UNLESS they agree to personally engage in farming or ranching. PLF’s lawsuit challenges the coercive requirement as a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, because it unconstitutionally deprives Willie of his liberty to engage in the career of his choosing. The requirement is also challenged under the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, because it amounts to an unreasonable dictate with no tie to any public need created by any development project application.

Harold Johnson hosts a discussion with PLF Attorney Christina Martin and Reginald Hill, a Church Deacon at Wayside Church. Several small property owners, including Reginald, are turning to the Supreme Court for help after they were victimized by Michigan’s abusive foreclosure law. Their appeal—a petition for certiorari — asks the justices to review and strike down the Michigan General Property Tax Act, which allows local government to sell people’s property for delinquent taxes, and hoard any extra profits for itself.