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Pacific Legal Foundation

9 min read

The Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) is a public interest law firm discussed across four episodes of The Bob Zadek Show. Bob Zadek describes it as one of his favorite public interest law firms and says it litigates on behalf of individuals for individual liberty, separation of powers, rule of law, economic freedom, and private property The Mini-Administrative State (2020). Guest Jessica Thompson, a litigator for the organization, says it fights back whenever the government encroaches on individual liberty and oversteps its constitutional bounds, in areas including property rights, defending the separation of powers as a protection of individual liberty, and ensuring the Constitution’s protections of equality under the law and opportunity for all Americans Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Structure and mission

In the 2022 episode “Food Truck v. Farmville,” Zadek introduces Thompson as a litigator for the Pacific Legal Foundation and describes the organization as incredibly successful, saying that based upon his informal statistics it never loses, or rarely loses, and that if it does lose, the loss is temporary because it is right back in court righting wrongs Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). Thompson describes the firm’s work as protecting Americans’ individual liberty and fighting back in a number of areas, including property rights, the separation of powers, and the Constitution’s protections of equality under the law and opportunity Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). She says the organization has litigators as well as policy attorneys who advocate in state courthouses and in state legislatures, and says it works in both directions to overturn certificate of need laws, which it frequently calls the competitor’s veto law Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Zadek also places the foundation alongside the Institute for Justice and a few others like it as among his favorite public interest law firms, and says the organization is in court all the time Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Endangered Species Act

In the 2018 episode on the Endangered Species Act, Zadek introduces Tony Francois as an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, working out of Sacramento, and says Francois would be participating in and helping prepare a case for the Supreme Court in the coming fall term Can California’s Endangered Species Survive U.S. Fish & Wildlife Policy? (2018). In that episode, Zadek says the result of the Endangered Species Act’s operation protecting the Delta smelt has been to deprive farmers and residents of Southern California of their water, and calls this the draconian effect of the act Can California’s Endangered Species Survive U.S. Fish & Wildlife Policy? (2018).

Francois’s own words are not recorded in the available excerpts. In the conclusion, Zadek urges listeners to follow the case in the fall term of the Supreme Court and to help the Pacific Legal Foundation Can California’s Endangered Species Survive U.S. Fish & Wildlife Policy? (2018).

Separation of powers and emergency powers

In the 2020 episode “The Mini-Administrative State,” Zadek opens by quoting James Madison’s observation that the accumulation of all power, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny, and applies it to governors, mayors, county executives, and health department officials exercising delegated authority during the pandemic The Mini-Administrative State (2020).

He introduces Glenn Roper as a practicing attorney and litigator with the Pacific Legal Foundation, describing the organization as an important public interest law firm that litigates on behalf of individuals, for individual liberty, separation of powers, rule of law, and economic freedom and private property The Mini-Administrative State (2020). Zadek says Roper has served in government and in the high levels of the legislative and judicial branches of state and federal government The Mini-Administrative State (2020).

In the closing segment, Zadek argues that governors who took extraordinary, almost dictatorial powers made a decision that people staying healthy is more important than people earning a living, and cites Governor Cuomo’s statement that even one life is priceless and Governor Wolf’s statement that first we deal with life, then we deal with livelihoods, calling this utter insanity The Mini-Administrative State (2020). Roper, in response, says the erosion of the separation of powers is something the organization is very concerned about, directs listeners to pacificlegal.org, and notes the organization has a number of attorneys and a blog that includes both his writing and the writing of other attorneys The Mini-Administrative State (2020). He invites listeners who are aware of a way the organization can get involved to help push back against government overreach to give them a call The Mini-Administrative State (2020).

Economic liberty and certificate of need

In “Food Truck v. Farmville,” Thompson explains certificate of need laws as a particular type of occupational licensing that is super problematic because it has nothing to do with the ability or safety of the services one wants to provide and nothing to do with public health and safety, but much more to do with one’s competitors Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). Under these laws, would-be entrepreneurs must obtain permission from the state before they are allowed to open or expand, and to get that permission they have to prove that their service or the facility they want to build is needed Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). Thompson says this most frequently comes up in the healthcare or transportation industry, and that states allow a direct competitor to weigh in: if one wants to open a respite care center for kids with special needs, competitors are asked whether another one is needed in the area, and if one wants to run a non-medical ambulance company, competitors are asked whether another transport company is needed in the industry Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). Frequently, she says, the competitors say they have it covered, and entrepreneurs are shut out Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). She says the person determining need is not the consumer or the customer but the bureaucrat, and that consumers and individuals are way more empowered to know what services they need Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

At the close of the episode, Thompson lists other areas in which the organization has fought for the right to earn an honest living: for moving companies to operate, for taxi cabs to operate, and for ambulance care operators to run their businesses, and on behalf of a social worker in Louisiana who wants to provide childcare services to special needs kids Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Food trucks and local protectionism

Thompson discusses the case of Mark Shirley, whose rights Zadek says the organization is defending, and who Zadek says wants to make his friends and neighbors happy in a town that says he cannot Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). Thompson says Mark is not seeking monetary damages; he is making a philosophical point and a point about his right to earn a living, and that he is willing to go back to the same regulations he was subject to when he first launched his business, but is challenging the amended ordinance requirements put in place to force him out of his parking spot and out of town Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). She says the town has not been approached with any offers of settlement, and that the town is free to repeal the amended ordinance anytime Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Thompson notes that if Mark had followed the property ordinances and received all the permits necessary to build there, he could have put a brick-and-mortar restaurant on the same land Food Truck v. Farmville (2022). She also says Baylen Linnekin has a recent article in Reason magazine about food trucks being squeezed out by local governments, and recounts that Detroit loosened its restrictions so that food trucks must now be 200 feet away from existing restaurants and 300 feet away from sports arenas Food Truck v. Farmville (2022).

Across episodes

The same general question — how a public interest law firm pushes back against government overreach — is discussed in all four episodes, but the excerpts do not show a single argument developing between an earlier and later treatment. Each episode addresses a different substantive area: the Endangered Species Act in 2018, pandemic emergency powers and the separation of powers in 2020, and certificate of need laws and food trucks in 2022. Bob Zadek carries the framing across all four; Tony Francois, Glenn Roper, and Jessica Thompson each speak only in their own episode.

What the sources do not cover

The excerpts do not state when the Pacific Legal Foundation was founded, where it is headquartered, how it is funded, or who its officers are. They do not state what the Supreme Court case mentioned by Zadek held or which constitutional amendment it turned on, nor do they give the name of any bill or ordinance beyond the amended ordinance in the Mark Shirley matter. The excerpts also do not record the remarks of Tony Francois, whose responses are represented only by a blank speaker label.

The Mini-Administrative State (2020) Food Truck v. Farmville (2022) Can California’s Endangered Species Survive U.S. Fish & Wildlife Policy? (2018)

Guests and episodes

5 appearances by 5 guests, 2018–2022.

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