In a landmark decision Friday, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Constitution allowed same sex couples the right to legally marry, regardless of where they resided in the United States. The Court was closely divided in its 5-4 ruling, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing the opinion… Read more »
The EPA’s recently developed “Clean Power Plan” is causing quite a bit of controversy. In a nutshell, the Plan does two things. First, the Plan requires states to adopt their own clean power plans to meet EPA greenhouse emissions reduction goals. If a state fails to adopt an emissions reduction plan that the EPA will… Read more »
The phrase “never let a crisis go to waste” has been attributed to various political Prop 218 thinkers over the years. The general idea behind the quote is that the people will allow the government to do all manner of things in a crisis that they might otherwise oppose. Thus, if you’re the type of… Read more »
In a major victory for the rights of property owners throughout the state, on March 2 the California Supreme Court in Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley held that the construction of a single family home is categorically exempt from the requirement of the preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) under the California Environmental… Read more »
The Ninth Circuit will soon have the opportunity to decide whether occupational licensing applicants must submit to all licensing procedures and be denied a license before they can challenge the constitutionality of those procedures in court. The facts of the case are fairly straightforward. Maurice Underwood wants to run a moving truck company in… Read more »
Under the “Rails to Trails” program, the Federal government has begun converting abandoned railroad tracks into hiking and biking trails for the public. While this may seem like a noble endeavor, there is one major problem: the land the trails run through doesn’t belong to the federal government. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century when… Read more »
This term the US Supreme Court will have the opportunity to decide whether the state can force private home assistants to join a public employee union. Recently, the Court agreed to hear arguments from appeal lawyers in Harris v Quinn. That case challenges the constitutionality of an Illinois executive order that declared personal home assistants (i.e…. Read more »
