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Zach Cronan
@LibertyForLunch
Fight the good fight • Digital/Comms @PacificLegal • Views are my own
Texas Hill Country
Joined March 2024
618 Following
112 Followers
113 Posts
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52 years ago today, on March 5, 1973, @PacificLegal was born.
"There was no Cato Institute, no Mercatus Center, no Institute for Justice, no FIRE...There was nothing like PLF."
Here's a little throwback to our 50th in 2023:
https://t.co/zp4TbZdrtj
I'm telling everyone who asks here in France that I'm from Texas.
European wine snobs love to turn up their noses at American wine, but they conveniently forget that their precious vineyards would be literal dirt if Central Texas hadn't bailed them out. Back in the 1800s, a nasty root-eating bug pushed the French wine industry to the brink of total extinction until they came begging the Lone Star State for help. Today, a whopping 80% to 90% of all grapevines in France are physically spliced onto the rugged, subterranean roots of the stubborn Central Texas Mustang Grape. Because those nasty bugs are still chilling in the European soil today, French grapes cannot survive on their own. Every single bottle of overpriced French wine you buy is a total hybrid—delicate European fruit up top, riding piggyback on a tough-as-nails Texan bodyguard down below.
The French really ought to be writing "thank you" notes to the rocky, sun-baked hills of Central Texas every single day. While roots from other states withered and quit, those Central Texas vines had spent centuries surviving brutal droughts and limestone dirt, making them completely immune to the bugs. In 1887, thousands of rugged Central Texas cuttings were shipped across the pond, and French farmers had to slice open their fancy vines and glue them onto Texas muscle just to keep from going belly up.
BREAKING: Days before America's 250th birthday, the Town of Newbury, MA warned Plum Island homeowners that flying American flags on their own property could violate endangered species law — and carry "significant regulatory and financial penalties." We've put the town on notice.
BREAKING: The California Coastal Commission told a Dana Point couple they could rebuild their aging home — but only if they agreed to demolish it whenever the government says so. We filed suit to stop this unconstitutional shakedown.
BREAKING: The California Supreme Court just unanimously ruled that the California Coastal Commission unlawfully overrode a county-approved building permit — one of the most significant checks on the Commission's power in the 40 years since Nollan v. CCC.
BREAKING: New York banned fracking by executive order — then expanded the ban to every method of accessing natural gas. A father and son's 164-acre property sitting on a rich gas reserve, was rendered worthless overnight. We filed suit to stop this unconstitutional taking.
BREAKING: Hawaii took Don Williams' property through eminent domain for $3 million less than it was worth. Then, the State lowered its offer, claiming Don now owes them 1.5 million. After a 13-year legal battle, a trial court agreed that Hawaii owed $7 million for his land.
BREAKING: Salina, Kansas has spent over $800,000 in taxpayer money trying to force a local restaurant owner to paint over a mural — because it includes burgers. Pacific Legal Foundation filed an amicus brief defending the owner's First Amendment rights at the Tenth Circuit.
BREAKING: Washington State hit a multigenerational cattle ranch with a $267,540 penalty and a restoration order costing about $3.7 million — then told the owners they have no right to a jury trial. We filed suit to stop the State from stripping that constitutional guarantee.
BREAKING: The federal government is requiring Maine lobstermen to transmit their GPS location to the government 24/7, even while docked, or lose their licenses. Fifth-generation lobsterman Frank Thompson asked the Supreme Court to protect his 4th Amendment rights.
End it don’t suspend it. I’m in @washingtonpost on the Jones Act. @Schneider_CM @KyleGriesinger @PacificLegal
https://t.co/mrMQTmslCf
Mises obliterated the entire socialist project in 1920 with one devastating insight: "Where there is no free market, there is no pricing mechanism; without a pricing mechanism, there is no economic calculation." The socialists spent the next century pretending this problem didn't exist while their economies collapsed around them.
And yet here we are, watching politicians promise they can "fix" healthcare, housing, and energy markets through central planning. They can't even calculate the cost of their own programs correctly — how exactly are they going to allocate resources across an entire economy?
Every Venezuelan breadline, every Soviet grain shortage, every Chinese famine was just Mises being proven right in the most brutal way possible. But sure, let's try democratic socialism this time. What could go wrong?
One tax assessor believed a family violated her personal vision of the law and set the wheels in motion to deprive them of their home and savings. And now, her overreach has become a matter for the U.S. Supreme Court.
Read more about our latest SCOTUS case in @NRO
Our grandparents learned Latin in high school and often built their own homes from the ground up... Now, remedial English is commonly taught in universities, and it's illegal to do your own plumbing.
BREAKING: We’re asking the Supreme Court to tell Massachusetts you shouldn’t need a professional license to work on plumbing in your house.
John Carbin is a federally certified aircraft mechanic and former Black Hawk crew chief but for Massachusetts, that’s not good enough.
Every other state allows homeowners to do their own plumbing, subject to permits and inspections. John is arguing that the ban violated his fundamental right to repair his own home.
A federal district court ruled that the right John asserted was not “fundamental” because it is not explicitly listed in the Constitution.
But we’re arguing that Supreme Court precedent, including the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. decision, makes clear that fundamental rights are not limited to those explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.
Courts must instead examine whether a claimed right is deeply rooted in the nation’s history and tradition and essential to a free society—an analysis the lower courts never performed. https://t.co/qz3JDyxTeL
“When environmental laws are allowed to morph into weapons of obstruction, they no longer protect nature—they punish Americans who are simply trying to use their own land responsibly.
By restoring NEPA to its intended role and streamlining an overburdened review system, the SPEED Act would clear a path for the energy, housing, and infrastructure investments America urgently needs.” -Joe Luppino-Esposito, Director of Federal Policy @PacificLegal.
It’s clear- we must pass @RepWesterman’s #SPEEDAct to get America building again. Read the rest here👇
BREAKING: School superintendent Wilmer Chavarria was detained in an airport in Houston, where Customs and Border Patrol agents denied him the right to call a lawyer and searched his phone and work laptop without a warrant and despite his protests.
Wilmer raised specific concerns about agents accessing his district-issued work laptop, which contained federally protected student information. He refused to give agents the passwords to district devices.
The agents said the Fourth Amendment didn't protect Wilmer's right to keep his property safe from warrantless search and seizure at the border. The Constitution says otherwise.
Border or no border, the Fourth Amendment is meant to protect Americans from having their property rights violated by the government.
Customs and Border Patrol employees cannot claim the power to trample on anyone's rights as a citizen simply because they're within a certain distance of the border.
That's why we’re helping Wilmer sue to defend Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights everywhere.
BREAKING: PLF heads back to the Supreme Court to fight Home Equity Theft!
A decade ago, the Pung family of Isabella County, Michigan, was hit with an improper property tax bill totaling $2,240. The government foreclosed on the Pungs’ property, confiscating the whole home for a tax that never should have been due.
What followed has been a bureaucratic torture chamber that ended with the Pung property being seized and sold out from underneath them. Not only did the Pungs lose their property, but they also lost all the home equity they had built in the years they owned the land and residence.
The Pungs deserve payment for what was taken — a $200,000 home minus any “debt.”
Mike Pung is now our client at the Supreme Court, where we’ll back up the Pungs’ long-time attorney, Philip Ellison. Winning at the Supreme Court would bring an end to the Pungs’ years-long nightmare. Mike Pung said, “It would mean that a whole bunch of people are going to get some justice.”
https://t.co/XOPVzDlxby
Animal lover? Too bad. The gov't says you're not worthy.
h/t my colleague @Schneider_CM
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