Tag: Institute for Justice

Categories
property rights

Property Owners Victorious

In late April, the Institute for Justice won a smashing judicial victory on behalf of the Community Youth Athletic Center, a boxing gym and haven for local kids, as well as for other property owners in the neighborhood. They hope it’s a knockout blow.

The California Superior Court ruled that National City had no warrant for declaring the area “blighted,” that the city government had violated due process, and that it had violated California’s Public Records Act by failing to provide a private consultant’s documentation of the alleged blight.

Such studies are often blighted themselves — jargon-ridden fictions concocted to rationalize what the government wants to do solely for other reasons. After the Supreme Court’s egregious Kelo decision, which gave targeted property owners little hope of protecting their property on constitutional grounds from eminent-domain attacks, property owners in California and other states fought for laws to protect themselves from such baseless designations of “blight.”

Of course, politicians continued to do their darnedest, grabbing stuff that doesn’t belong to them. So the status of the legal protections often must be adjudicated.

CYAC president Clemente Casillas says, “I hope National City does the right thing now and throws in the towel so we can get back to focusing all our attention on helping to grow the kids in our community. The city can have redevelopment, but that has to be done through private negotiation, not by government force.”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
ballot access First Amendment rights

Clean Elections or Dirty Con?

No supporter of so-called “clean elections” would argue that we should be forced by law to pull the lever on election day for the candidate we oppose. But the tangled web that politicians and regulators have woven with campaign finance laws does often force us to support candidates we oppose during the run-up to election day.

Here’s just one perverse example: The “‘clean’ elections” system in Arizona. Under Arizona’s scheme, if Candidate A runs as a “‘clean’ elections” candidate, every time Candidate B, who declines public funding, raises a certain amount of money by making effective appeals for support, Candidate A gets matching funds at taxpayer expense. In other words, the government forces you as taxpayer to offset the support you give to Candidate B voluntarily by ensuring that your money goes to Candidate A too — involuntarily. Under this law, the spending of independent groups is also matched by coercive taxpayer donations to “‘clean’ elections” candidates.

It’s a horrific skewing of the political field in favor of the ideas and candidates voters don’t want to support — a direct coercive assault on their democratic rights.

The fate of Arizona’s “welfare-for-politicians” law has survived a federal appeal, but may yet be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Institute for Justice has taken up the cudgels on behalf of independent groups and candidates who garner financial support the old fashioned way . . . they earn it.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets general freedom nannyism too much government

A Tour of Over-Regulation

Want a measure of the regulatory state run amok?

Recently in the Washington Post, Robert McNamara of the Institute for Justice informed us that “In the 1950s, only about one out of every 20 Americans needed a license to pursue the occupation of their choice. Today, that number is one out of every three.”

Wow. A lot more hoops to jump through to get a job or start a business.

Want to add insult to injury? The actual regulation McNamara was writing about makes it illegal — punishable by three months in the local jail in our nation’s capital — to “describe . . . any place or point of interest in the District to any person” as part of a tour without first getting a license.

And the license process is no picnic, either. Sure, this past summer the city did repeal the rule requiring a doctor’s certification that the aspiring guide is not a drunkard. But there remain plenty of stupid regulations, including new ones that require guides to be proficient in English. And yes, that applies even to guides who talk to those benighted folk who speak foreign languages.

Applicants must also pass a test on their knowledge of “various facets of Washington life, including architecture, history and regulations.”

Tour guides must be expert in “regulations.”

Even the Washington Post headlined its editorial, “Tour de farce,” suggesting that a system of “voluntary certification” would work better than big government rules.

Yes. That’s right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights free trade & free markets property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Hooray for IJ

Let a thousand floral arrangements bloom.

Louisiana has just abolished the “demonstration” section of the state’s licensing exam for florists. The new law came in response to a lawsuit by florists working with the Institute for Justice. IJ argued that the four-hour demonstration requirement was “arbitrary, subjective and antiquated,” and allowed state-licensed florists to determine the fate of their future competitors.

The outcome represents yet another victory for the “merry band of libertarian litigators” who regularly do battle “in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion on behalf of individuals whose most basic rights are denied by the government. . . .”

Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice has successfully fought to lift caps on the number of licensed taxis in Minneapolis; eliminate laws around the country that prevent competition in every kind of occupation, from animal husbandry and interior design to hair braiding and pest control; restore freedom of speech undermined by vague and arbitrary campaign finance regulation in Florida and enemies of property rights in Tennessee; protect businessmen and home owners from eminent domain abuse in Arizona and Ohio.

IJ’s many successful efforts to defend the rights of individuals are having a major impact. Looking back over the many installments of Common Sense, I find that I mention this group’s work again and again.

With good reason. They keep fighting the good fight, and winning.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
property rights

Justice in St. Paul

Imagine being on the edge of your seat for some 20 years. It’s a long time to wait for anything, especially about whether you can keep doing business on your own property.

That’s what Karen Haug and her company, Advance Shoring, have endured since the early ’90s. That was when the port authority of St. Paul, Minnesota announced plans to grab the company’s property for somebody else’s private use.

Advance Shoring, founded by Haug’s father in 1960, has been fighting the grab ever since.

The port authority has now officially abandoned its plan, agreeing to seek to acquire the property only by voluntary means. Haug says: “I’m breathing a sigh of relief for our business and employees. . . . Now we can return to running our business.”

As so often in battles to protect innocent Americans against eminent domain abuse, some credit must go to the Institute for Justice. In publicly heralding the port authority’s decision, Lee McGrath, of IJ’s Minnesota chapter, urged city officials to recognize that “the port authority’s past uses of eminent domain are now illegal under Minnesota’s 2006 reforms,” and to strip the port authority of its power to condemn properties.

The port authority, for its part, seems annoyed that there’s been publicity about its defeat. They say they’d been hoping to keep the matter quiet.

Poor fellows. I weep for them; crocodiles have such tears.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
First Amendment rights

Florida Anti-Speech Tyranny

The Broward Coalition of Condominiums, Homeowners Associations and Community Organizations, Inc., regularly puts out newsletters. No surprise. Lots of organizations do.

This Florida organization, though, does something more. Its newsletters regularly feature political subjects. Nothing shocking about that, either. This is America, right?

Well, yes. But the First Amendment has been abridged. In Florida, especially, there exist onerous “electioneering communications” laws that squelch the kind of speech that the Broward Coalition engages in.

Florida law requires any group of people to register with the government if the group mentions a candidate or ballot issue in any media — electronic, paper, or plastic — and to report all of its spending and funding sources, too.

That kind of oppressive control is what started the American Revolution. Fortunately, we have a less violent way of opposing speech tyranny today.

The Broward Coalition has joined with the National Taxpayers Union and the University of Florida College Libertarians to file suit. Represented by the Institute for Justice, they charge that the law regulating their speech goes against the First Amendment.

Bert Gall, IJ senior attorney, puts it exactly right when he insists that “Florida’s law is part of a growing trend of shutting up and shutting out anyone but political pros from politics.”

And that trend must be stopped.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.