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Pacific Legal Fdn

SEE PACIFIC LEGAL 2

also tag pacleg

 cf Nollan v on Takings

promoted to primary 4/14 big anti-green

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Seattle (AP) — Killer whales that spend their summers in Puget Sound are a distinct population group and will remain protected under the Endangered Species Act, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Friday.

NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service spent a year reviewing a petition to delist the orcas. The petition was brought by the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of California farmers who faced water restrictions to protect salmon the orcas eat. They argued the Puget Sound orcas were part of a larger north Pacific population and didn't qualify for the 2005 endangered species listing.

Things did not play out as simply as Powell intimated.  Following the formation of the Pacific Legal Foundation in 1973 with the support from the California Chamber of Commerce, several other regional foundations were soon created under the auspices of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest (NLCPI).  This network was organized geographically, not functionally, and held together by interlocking directorships.  The result was “organizational turmoil” because as one insider told Teles “NLCPI had all the structural flaws of the Articles of Confederation” (p.63).  Equally telling, the emphasis on filing amicus briefs displaced coherent litigation strategies and put the foundations on fund-raising treadmills. Most damning of all for Powell’s business-led strategy were unexpected tensions between business interests and conservative ideology.  As Adam Smith cautioned long ago, business interests are not synonymous with the public interest however it is defined.

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Victor Wolski nom, dereg for pacific legal fdn; will one less puddle have effect on mkt for migrating birds?

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For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its determination that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.[5])

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wa post on scaife:

In many Scaife-supported organizations, the founders have been supplanted by successors unfamiliar with his role. Robert K. Best, president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, oldest and perhaps most influential of the conservative public interest law firms, was surprised to learn that Scaife contributions had constituted at least half the group's budget in its early years.

Pacific Legal Foundation

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The Pacific Legal Foundation is a Sacramento, California-based legal organization that was established March 5, 1973 [1] to support pro-business causes. In recent years, it has taken a lead in pursuing anti-affirmative action policies.

It is the key right-wing public interest litigation firm in a network of similar organizations funded initially by Scaife Foundations money across the USA to support capitalism and oppose environmental and health activism and government regulation.

The organization has been [2] partially funded by a range of corporations and conservative foundations.

History

The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) was established in 1973-74 by a group of attorneys from California's Justice Department (then under the control of Attorney-General Ed Meese) to counter reform of the welfare system, and the liberal public interest legal groups that were pressing for better environmental and health regulations. Especially targeted were the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Governor Ronald Reagan of California appears to have provided the required financial links to Pittsburg billionairre Richard Mellon Scaife who funded the initial office in Sacramento, and his friend and counsellor, Ed Meese (III) became one of the founders and its chief supporter. Its expressed aim was to use its financial and litigation power to "impact the public policy agenda."

An article in the Washington Post in May 1999 reveals that "Scaife's first grants in this area (conservative public interest law movement) were made in 1974 to the Pacific Legal Foundation. In its early years Scaife kept the PLF alive. Since the mid-'70s more than $20 million in Scaife money has gone to the conservative public interest law movement "on behalf of a market-oriented economics system, traditional property rights and limited government," in the words of an internal memowritten by a Scaife aide in December 1980."

The day-to-day operations of the Foundation were in the hands of Ronald A Zumbrun, who's law firm Zumbrun & Findley ran most of the cases. Before his elevation to CEO of the PLF, Zumbrun had been a lawyer with the California Department of Public Works, the California Department of Social Welfare and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

By 1983 the organization was seen as a "growing force in public interest work" with an annual income of $2.5 million per year [3] and it had already begun to spawn other regional legal centers of a similar kind using Scaife funding. Not all of these, however, focussed on the aggressive use of litigation as did the PLF. According to a Philip Morris document urging the company to develop stronger links with the foundation: "It has participated in hundreds of cases at all court levels, winning the vast majority of those reaching final decision - including several before the U.S. Supreme Court."

It has also won many major social cases in California involving decisions to uphold ballot initiatives[prop 13], ending state-aid to illegal immigrants,banning affirmative action,and replacing bilingual education with immersion in English.

Tobacco Industry associations

PLF is listed as a "key third party ally" in a September 14, 1999 Philip Morris document.[4]

In 1989, Philip Morris began funding the organization through its Mission Viejo (gated-community land-development company) ORG CTYsubsidiary, mainly because the organisation was active in the property rights area and had won cases limiting the States' ability to expropriate or regulate private property. The Mission Viejo subsidiary was interested infighting a no-growth initiativewhich had been blocking some of their development projects. At this stage Philip Morris only gave an annual grant of $5,000 each year, just to keep the organisation on side and available, but it may have also funded specific legal projects.

By 1991 the PLF had a major budget crisis. It was in deficit to the tune of about $1 million, which was about a quarter of its $4 million annual requirements. Not long after, Roy Marden, the Philip Morris executive in charge of maintaining relations with the right-wing think tanks and advocacy institutes, joined the PLF board. Overnight the funding increased substantially to $10,000, and then $22,000 by 1993. Philip Morris also began to utilize the PLF to undertake hidden media and political activities on its behalf.

For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its determination that Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.[5])

At this time Philip Morris was also heavily funded two of PLF's unacknowledged offspring, the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Atlantic Legal Foundation. The Washington Legal Foundation was another of a similar kind favoured and funded ($200,000) by Philip Morris, but it was independent of the Scaife-funded, PLF-based network. [6]

The PLF also intervened successful in Keller v. California State Bar, where it established a legal precedent that California lawyers could challenge the use of their dues to the state bar for political purposes. This was an successful attempt to block collective actions by the more liberal Californian lawyers who were involving themselves in such policy areas as class-actions and product liability. DTL? union, tort

By the mid 1990s the PLF had offices in Sacramento, Anchorage and Seattle and ran several key issues and programs:

It also sloughed off the Center for Applied Jurisprudence which focused on commercial "free speech issues"(i.e., the right to advertise harmful products) and "regulatory reform." Philip Morris was giving them a $25,000 retainer by this time (and presumably paying also for work done on their behalf).

In 1997-1998 the PLF joined forces with the $10 million funded (by Philip Morris) National Smokers Alliance, in a fierce and vindictive legal attack on Professor Stanton Arnold Glantz, a leader of California's main anti-smoking organization, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights[7] and attempted to brand him in the public mind as having something to hide ... a destroyer of legal document (a ruse the tobacco industry used itself on a massive scale). Glantz had received documents from the early tobacco industry whistleblowers, and he had established the first public-access Internet web site revealing how the industry operated.

Anti-Environment Policies

According to ExxonSecrets.org, the Pacific Legal Foundation has received $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The website goes on to state that:

Anti-environmental from the start, PLF's early actions supported the use of DDT, the use of herbicides in national forests, and the use of public range land without requiring an environmental impact review. They also supported at least six pro-nuclear power cases before the early eighties while accepting funding from Pacific General Electric (PGE), a utility which has gained a great deal through the development of nuclear power in the Pacific Northwest. In the 1980s, PLF won several cases that are considered landmarks by those working on property rights issues today: Nollan v the California Coastal Commission and First Church, both Supreme Court victories which provide precedence for the takings litigation pursued today (Oliver Houck, "With Charity For All," Yale Law Journal, 1993). In October 2003, PLF Vice President M. David Stirling had an Op-Ed published in which he defended President Bush's environmental record and condemned former President Clinton for endorsing the Kyoto Protocol.

Associated Legal Foundations

Contact Details

Pacific Legal Foundation

3900 Lennane Drive, Suite 200

Sacramento, CA 95834

Phone: (916) 419 7111 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (916) 419 7111      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: (916) 419 7747

Email: plf AT pacificlegal.org

Web: http://www.pacificlegal.org/

External links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation

Environmental Law

PLF's environmental law litigation has frequently involved challenges to federal regulation of private property under the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act. For example, PLF attorneys represented a Minnesota property owner who was denied the right to build on his property in Contoski v. Scarlett,[6]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-5) a case that resulted in the removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list.

Pacific Legal Foundation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Pacific Legal FoundationPacific Legal Foundation
FormationMarch 5, 1973
HeadquartersSacramento, California
Websitewww.pacificlegal.org

Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is the first and oldest conservative/libertarian public interest law firm in the United States.[1]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-0) PLF was established for the purpose of defending and promoting individual and economic freedom in the courts.[2]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-1) To that end, PLF attorneys litigate, file amicus curiae briefs, and participate in administrative proceedings with the goal of supporting free enterprise, private property rights, reasonable environmental regulations, and the principle of limited government.

PLF is a non-profit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, and contributions to the Foundation qualify for a charitable tax deduction.[3]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-2) PLF does not charge for legal services, but instead provides representation in cases raising important policy issues that go beyond the narrow interest of the parties before the court.

Incorporated in Sacramento, California, on March 5, 1973, PLF’s staff was originally composed mainly of individuals who had been a part of then-Governor Ronald Reagan’s welfare reform team.[4]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-3) Operating on a proposed budget of $117,000 for the first 10 months of operation, PLF attorneys began litigation activities in June 1973 under the direction of Ronald A. Zumbrun, PLF’s first president.[5]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-4) Over the four decades of PLF’s existence, its attorneys have obtained favorable decisions from many of the nation’s courts.

Contents[hide]

[edit] Locations

[edit] National Litigation Center

Pacific Legal Foundation

3900 Lennane Drive, Suite 200

Sacramento, CA 95834

[edit] Atlantic Center

Pacific Legal Foundation

1002 SE Monterey Commons Blvd.

Suite 102

Stuart, FL 34996

[edit] Pacific Northwest Center

Pacific Legal Foundation

10940 NE 33rd Place, Suite 210

Bellevue, WA 98004

[edit] Hawaii Center

Pacific Legal Foundation

P.O. Box 3619

Honolulu, HI 96811

[edit] Legal Program

Property Rights

PLF's property rights cases have focused on regulatory takings. The Foundation's attorneys have successfully argued three takings cases at the United States Supreme Court: *Nollan v. California Coastal Commission*,Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency,and *Palazzolo v. Rhode Island*.

Environmental Law

PLF's environmental law litigation has frequently involved challenges to federal regulation of private property under the Clean Water Act or the Endangered Species Act. For example, PLF attorneys represented a Minnesota property owner who was denied the right to build on his property in Contoski v. Scarlett,[6]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-5) a case that resulted in the removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list.

Individual Rights

PLF has participated in cases challenging government-sponsored race and sex preferences, both under the federal Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and state constitutional provisions such as California's Proposition 209 and Washington's I 200. Under its "Free Enterprise Project," PLF argues that certain licensing laws and similar regulations violate the individual right to earn a living and result in a loss of jobs and a lower standard of living for Americans.

[edit] Cases

PLF has been involved in many important cases before the United States Supreme Court and other courts. PLF’s Supreme Court victories include Nollan v. California Coastal Commission (1987),[7]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-6) *Keller v. State Bar of California* (1990),[8]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-7) Suitum v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (1997),[9]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-8) *Palazzolo v. Rhode Island* (2001),[10]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-9) and *Rapanos v. United States* (2006)[11]^(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Legal_Foundation#cite_note-10) PLF principal attorney Sharon L. Browne has won two significant victories in the California Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of Proposition 209.[12] wiki: ^**Proposition 209**:{ (also known as the :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:**California Civil Rights Initiative**:{) is a :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[California ballot proposition which, upon approval in November 1996, amended the state constitution to prohibit state government institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting or public education. Modeled on the 1964 Civil Rights act, the California Civil Rights Initiative (CCRI), was authored by two California academics, Dr. Glynn Custred and Dr. Tom Wood.]

[edit] Programs

[edit] Program for Judicial Awareness

PLF's Program for Judicial Awareness facilitates the publication of scholarly articles in legal-academic journals, operates an annual essay competition for law students, and awards grants for faculty research leading to the publication of important legal scholarship.

[edit] College of Public Interest Law

Since 1979, PLF has offered College of Public Interest Law (CPIL)fellowships to recent law school graduates who want hands-on experience and who wish to pursue public interest litigation.

[edit] References

  1. **^** Zumbrun, Ronald A. (2004). “Life, Liberty, and Property Rights,” in Bringing Justice to the People: The Story of the Freedom-Based Public Interest Law Movement (Lee Edwards, ed.). Washington, DC: Heritage Books, ISBN 0974366528, p.41.
  2. **^** Zumbrun, Ronald A. (2004). “Life, Liberty, and Property Rights,” in Bringing Justice to the People: The Story of the Freedom-Based Public Interest Law Movement (Lee Edwards, ed.). Washington, DC: Heritage Books, ISBN 0974366528, p.41-42.
  3. **^** http://community.pacificlegal.org/Page.aspx?pid=262
  4. **^** Zumbrun, Ronald A. (2004). “Life, Liberty, and Property Rights,” in Bringing Justice to the People: The Story of the Freedom-Based Public Interest Law Movement (Lee Edwards, ed.). Washington, DC: Heritage Books, ISBN 0974366528, p.42-43.
  5. **^** Zumbrun, Ronald A. (2004). “Life, Liberty, and Property Rights,” in Bringing Justice to the People: The Story of the Freedom-Based Public Interest Law Movement (Lee Edwards, ed.). Washington, DC: Heritage Books, ISBN 0974366528, p.43-44.
  6. **^** Not Reported in F.Supp.2d, 2006 WL 2331180 (D.Minn.), 63 ERC 1892, No. 05-2528, Aug. 10, 2006.
  7. **^** FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
  8. **^** FindLaw | Cases and Codes
  9. **^** FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
  10. **^** FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
  11. **^** FindLaw for Legal Professionals - Case Law, Federal and State Resources, Forms, and Code
  12. **^** See Hi-Voltage Wire Works v. San Jose (2000), 24 Cal.4th 537, 12 P.3d 1068, 101 Cal.Rptr.2d 653, No. S080318, Nov. 30, 2000; Coral Construction v. City and County of San Francisco, S152934 (Aug. 2, 2010).

[edit] External links

The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) was established in 1973-74 by a group of attorneys from California's Justice Department (then under the control of Attorney-General Ed Meese) to counter reform of the welfare system, and the liberal public interest legal groups that were pressing for better environmental and health regulations. Especially targeted were the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund.

Governor**Ronald Reagan**of California appears to have provided the required financial links to Pittsburg billionairre**Richard Mellon :{Scaife:(style="color:#ed1c24"):}:**who funded the initial office in Sacramento, and his friend and counsellor, Ed Meese (III) became one of the founders and its chief supporter. Its expressed aim was to use its financial and litigation power to "impact the public policy agenda."

An article in the Washington Post in May 1999 reveals that"Scaife's first grants in this area (conservative public interest law movement) were made in 1974 to the Pacific Legal Foundation. In its early years Scaife kept the PLF alive. Since the mid-'70s more than $20 million in Scaife money has gone to the conservative public interest law movement "on behalf of a market-oriented economics system, traditional property rights and limited government," in the words of an internal memo written by a Scaife aide in December 1980."

The day-to-day operations of the Foundation were in the hands of Ronald A Zumbrun, who's law firm Zumbrun & Findley ran most of the cases. Before his elevation to CEO of the PLF, Zumbrun had been a lawyer with the California Department of Public Works, the California Department of Social Welfare and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

By 1983 the organization was seen as a "growing force in public interest work" with an annual income of $2.5 million per year [3] and it had already begun to spawn other regional legal centers of a similar kind using Scaife funding. Not all of these, however, focussed on the aggressive use of litigation as did the PLF. According to a Philip Morris document urging the company to develop stronger links with the foundation: "It has participated in hundreds of cases at all court levels, winning the vast majority of those reaching final decision - including several before the U.S. Supreme Court."

It has also won many major social cases in California involving decisions to uphold ballot initiatives, ending state-aid to illegal immigrants, banning affirmative action, and replacing bilingual education with immersion in English.

Tobacco Industry associations

PLF is listed as a "key third party ally" in a September 14, 1999 Philip Morris document.[4]

In 1989, Philip Morris began funding the organization through its Mission Viejo (gated-community land-development company) subsidiary, mainly because the organisation was active in the property rights area and had won cases limiting the States' ability to expropriate or regulate private property. The Mission Viejo subsidiary was interested in fighting a no-growth initiative which had been blocking some of their development projects. At this stage Philip Morris only gave an annual grant of $5,000 each year, just to keep the organisation on side and available, but it may have also funded specific legal projects.

By 1991 the PLF had a major budget crisis. It was in deficit to the tune of about $1 million, which was about a quarter of its $4 million annual requirements. Not long after, Roy Marden, the Philip Morris executive in charge of maintaining relations with the right-wing think tanks and advocacy institutes, joined the PLF board. Overnight the funding increased substantially to $10,000, and then $22,000 by 1993. Philip Morris also began to utilize the PLF to undertake hidden media and political activities on its behalf.

For instance, it enlisted the organization (together with think-tanks like the Reason Foundation, Hoover Institute, Heritage Foundation and Claremont Institute) to write op-ed pieces that were planted in newspapers attacking the**Environmental Protection Agency**(EPA) over its determination that**Environmental Tobacco Smoke**(ETS) was a carcinogen and its attempt to regulate Indoor Air Quality (IAQ). (See page 4 of this planning document.**[5]**)

At this time Philip Morris was also heavily funded two of PLF's unacknowledged offspring, the National Legal Center for the Public Interest and the Atlantic Legal Foundation. The Washington Legal Foundation was another of a similar kind favoured and funded ($200,000) by Philip Morris, but it was independent of the Scaife-funded, PLF-based network. [6]

The PLF also intervened successful in Keller v. California State Bar, where it established a legal precedent that California lawyers could challenge the use of their dues to the state bar for political purposes. This was an successful attempt to block collective actions by the more liberal Californian lawyers who were involving themselves in such policy areas as class-actions and product liability.

By the mid 1990s the PLF had offices in Sacramento, Anchorage and Seattle and ran several key issues and programs:

It also sloughed off the Center for Applied Jurisprudence which focused on commercial "free speech issues" (i.e., the right to advertise harmful products) and "regulatory reform." Philip Morris was giving them a $25,000 retainer by this time (and presumably paying also for work done on their behalf).

In 1997-1998 the PLF joined forces with the $10 million funded (by Philip Morris) National Smokers Alliance, in a fierce and vindictive legal attack on Professor Stanton Arnold Glantz, a leader of California's main anti-smoking organization, Americans for Nonsmokers Rights[7] and attempted to brand him in the public mind as having something to hide ... a destroyer of legal document (a ruse the tobacco industry used itself on a massive scale). Glantz had received documents from the early tobacco industry whistleblowers, and he had established the first public-access Internet web site revealing how the industry operated.

Anti-Environment Policies

According to ExxonSecrets.org, the Pacific Legal Foundation has received $110,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998. The website goes on to state that:

Anti-environmental from the start, PLF's early actions supported the use of DDT, the use of herbicides in national forests, and the use of public range land without requiring an environmental impact review. They also supported at least six pro-nuclear power cases before the early eighties while accepting funding from Pacific General Electric (PGE), a utility which has gained a great deal through the development of nuclear powerin the Pacific Northwest. In the 1980s, PLF won several cases that are considered landmarks by those working on property rights issues today: Nollan v the California Coastal Commission and First Church, both Supreme Court victories which provide precedence for the takings litigation pursued today (Oliver Houck, "With Charity For All," Yale Law Journal, 1993). In October 2003, PLF Vice President M. David Stirling had an Op-Ed published in which he defended President Bush's environmental record and condemned former President Clinton for endorsing the Kyoto Protocol.

Associated Legal Foundations

Contact Details

Pacific Legal Foundation

3900 Lennane Drive, Suite 200

Sacramento, CA 95834

Phone: (916) 419 7111 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (916) 419 7111      end_of_the_skype_highlighting

Fax: (916) 419 7747

Email: plf AT pacificlegal.org

Web: http://www.pacificlegal.org/

External links

Attachments