Eric Shear

When Andy Cilek, executive director of Minnesota Voters Alliance, went to the polls in 2010, he was kept from voting for five hours because a poll worker decided that his clothing violated Minnesota’s “voting dress code.” Eventually, he was allowed to cast his vote, but poll workers took down his name for possible prosecution. All because of a t-shirt.

On Christmas Eve I lost a friend, PLF lost a star attorney, and the nation lost a great advocate for freedom. With the passing of Reed Hopper, we have much to mourn but at the same time much to celebrate in having been blessed to share Reed’s passion for the law and liberty. But even more than that, Reed had an unerring sense of right and wrong, and the innate ability to choose the higher path in everything he did.

A unanimous decision by the U.S. Supreme Court on January 22 vindicated 11 PLF clients like John Duarte and Kevin Pierce who simply wanted to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency in federal court. PLF’s victory ensures that future challengers to the Clean Water Act and regulatory malfeasance will have plenty of time to take the EPA to court.

After the husband passed away from lung cancer, Kimberly Manor decided that she wanted to help other longtime smokers quit and hoped to prevent others from going through the pain she experienced. Kimberly owns and operates Moose Jooce in Lake, Michigan, a store that sells vaping products. These devices, sometimes known more generally as “electronic nicotine delivery” products, provide Kimberly’s customers with a real alternative to smoking, one that many studies and testimonials have suggested could be a much safer alternative.

One of America's most cherished constitutional guarantees is the promise that no one may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Many people know of the due process protections for people accused of a crime, such as the presumption of innocence and the right to counsel. But adjudication processes by regulatory agencies are different, and sometimes result in property owners being treated worse than criminals.

The English Historian Lord Acton told us that “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” As those who have been battling government agencies for many years know, it can be added that administrative power corrupts both the governing and the governed just the same. As bureaucracies grow, so too does their reach. As their reach grows, freedoms diminish. And as freedoms wither, people are tempted to compromise their rights in order to survive.

The regulatory state began last century during the New Deal, inspired by earlier Progressives who believed that individualism, capitalism, and the Constitution were obstacles to prosperity.

In 1876, Kudzu was introduced into the United States as an attractive and seemingly harmless vine; however, the invasive species has strangled vast territories. A similar invasive species has sprawled throughout the United States federal government: the mass of federal regulatory agencies that we refer to as “the regulatory state.” And— through a sophisticated and com- prehensive litigation, research, and education plan—PLF is taking proverbial shears to this unconstitutional mass of government entanglement and dismantling the regulatory state.

Is the American Dream of home ownership really dead in the hearts and minds of millennials, or is it just waiting for them to be able to afford it?

PLF has been a consistent presence before the U.S. Supreme Court since opening our doors in 1973—we have a record unmatched among our peers. Importantly, we are increasing our presence at the Court: the justices have ruled on the merits in five of our cases since 2012, and we have filed a remarkable nine petitions asking the Court to hear new cases so far this term. Add to that the dozens of friend-of-the-court briefs filed in support of individual liberty and the principles of limited government in others’ cases during the past few years alone.

If you're baffled by reports of surging enthusiasm for socialism in America and by the confusion that the term engenders, it helps to look closer at the works of socialism’s most prominent proponent: the German theorist Karl Marx.

Attending a United States Supreme Court hearing was never on Bob Pepper’s bucket list.