Institute for Justice
Liberty & Law
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In This Issue
New Territory for Educational Choice
This summer, the Institute for Justice deployed to Puerto Rico to defend a new educational choice program that has the potential to give tens of thousands of children a better life. Puerto Rican children need help. Their public schools are currently struggling under the weight of persistent violence, demoralized teachers, and, most recently, Hurricanes Irma…
North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program Expands and Succeeds
New research proves what many parents—and Liberty & Law readers—already know: Educational choice works. The most recent evidence comes courtesy of North Carolina’s Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). In 2015, IJ successfully defended the OSP against lawsuits by the state’s school boards and teachers’ association. The case resulted in a victory for educational choice at the…
IJ Brief Urges U.S. Supreme Court to Check the Administrative State
Did you know it’s a federal crime to sell wine with “Zombie” in its brand name? Unelected bureaucrats are responsible for countless ridiculous criminal laws like this one—and hundreds of thousands more that ruin people’s lives, liberties, and livelihoods. Now the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear a case that could have a major…
CERT GRANTED!
This summer, IJ learned that, for the sixth time in our history, we will appear before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend individual liberty. Loyal Liberty & Law readers will recall that in our April 2018 issue we described a Supreme Court petition IJ had just filed on behalf of Tyson Timbs. After Tyson’s car…
VICTORY! IJ Puts a Stop to Colorado’s Campaign Finance Bullies
Two and a half years ago, IJ launched a bold First Amendment challenge to Colorado’s unusual system of campaign finance enforcement. Unlike most states, Colorado had granted every person the right to file private lawsuits to enforce the state’s byzantine campaign finance laws. Predictably, political insiders filed these lawsuits not out of any genuine concern…
FOIA Victory at the Illinois Supreme Court
Usually, IJ’s victories come to us as the lawyers in a case. In our latest state supreme court victory, however, we won as a client. In May, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that IJ is entitled to government documents we first requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in September 2013. When we first…
A Historic Victory Against Taxation by Citation
In 2015, IJ took on a wildly abusive fines and fees scheme in Pagedale, Missouri. The case was our second-ever class action lawsuit, and the practices we targeted affected the entire town. This May, our big ambitions paid off when we secured a groundbreaking consent decree between the city of Pagedale and the thousands of…
IJ Delivers One-Two Punch Against Airport CASH SEIZURES
In May, IJ filed back-to-back lawsuits against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), challenging the agency’s predatory forfeiture practices at America’s airports. Both cases resulted in swift victories for our clients, and now both cases will continue in federal court with the goal of establishing broad precedent curtailing CBP’s mistreatment of innocent air travelers. In…
Suing to Make a Georgia City Serve and Protect, Not Ticket and Collect
Fresh off our victory against an unconstitutional fines and fees scheme in Pagedale, Missouri (see page 10), IJ launched a new case representing four Georgians taking on financially motivated code enforcement in their community. Hilda Brucker received a $100 fine and six months of probation because of her cracked driveway. Jeff Thornton was sentenced to…
In the Trenches AND On the Hills:
IJ is well known for litigating in courts of law and the court of public opinion. But we also work tirelessly in state capitals across the country to protect and advance individual liberty. IJ’s activism team organizes local entrepreneurs to fight burdensome licensing laws, our strategic research team supplies legislators with fresh data to use…
