Timothy Sandefur

Timothy Sandefur

tmsandefur@gmail.com

Website: http://www.pacificlegal.org

Timothy Sandefur is a Principal Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, where he is the lead attorney in the Foundation’s Economic Liberty Project, devoted to promoting constitutional protection for the freedom of business owners and entrepreneurs. He also litigates against the abuse of eminent domain, having defended property owners in courts across the country, and blogs regularly on the Foundation's PLF Liberty Blog. He is the author of two books, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America (Cato Institute, 2006) and The Right to Earn A Living: Economic Freedom And The Law (Cato Institute, 2010), as well as some 40 scholarly articles on subjects ranging from eminent domain and economic liberty to copyright, evolution and creationism, and the legal issues of slavery and the Civil War. His articles have appeared in National Review, Liberty, The Claremont Review of Books, Forbes Online, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Times, and other places. He is an adjunct professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Sandefur is a graduate of Chapman University School of Law and Hillsdale College.

Timothy Sandefur

Timothy Sandefur is a Principal Attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, where he is the lead attorney in the Foundation’s Economic Liberty Project, devoted to promoting constitutional protection for the freedom of business owners and entrepreneurs. He also litigates against the abuse of eminent domain, having defended property owners in courts across the country, and blogs regularly on the Foundation’s PLF Liberty Blog. He is the author of two books, Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st Century America (Cato Institute, 2006) and The Right to Earn A Living: Economic Freedom And The Law (Cato Institute, 2010), as well as some 40 scholarly articles on subjects ranging from eminent domain and economic liberty to copyright, evolution and creationism, and the legal issues of slavery and the Civil War. His articles have appeared in National Review, Liberty, The Claremont Review of Books, Forbes Online, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Washington Times, and other places. He is an adjunct professor of law at the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Sandefur is a graduate of Chapman University School of Law and Hillsdale College.

Recent Posts:

PLF urges Fourth Circuit: give business owners the chance to prove their cases

Under legal precedents established in the 1930s, business owners who want to defend their constitutional right to earn a living against unreasonable government interference face a very difficult task. They must overcome the “rational basis test,” a legal theory that says the judge must presume that the law is constitutional and the business owner is [...]

In 1765, Philadelphia printer William Bradford protested against the Stamp Act by printing this symbol in the spot where people were supposed to attach the required tax stamp. Bradford was complying with the law—while drawing people’s attention to the injustice of the tax. Bradford’s act was not unusual: business owners were at the head of [...]

When is a desert a “water of the United States”?

When the government says so.

Will the courts enforce the Origination Clause against Obamacare?

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto writes that Pacific Legal Foundation’s challenge to Obamacare is unlikely to succeed. Assuming that Obamacare’s monetary exaction for not buying insurance is a tax, as the Supreme Court called it in its June opinion, still not all taxes are “bills for raising revenue,” which the Constitution requires to be generated by the [...]

Pacific Legal Foundation urges Supreme Court to give business owners their day in court

Today, we filed this petition for certiorari with the United States Supreme Court, asking the justices to review a case that severely restricts Americans’ right to challenge the constitutionality of laws. The case, Hettinga v. United States, began when Arizona dairy owners Hein and Ellen Hettinga sued over a federal law that targeted their business [...]

Challenging America’s most anti-competitive licensing law

I filed a lawsuit this morning challenging the constitutionality of what may be the nation’s most restrictive “Certificiate of Necessity” law. You can read about the case at PLF Liberty Blog.

Akhil Amar on Lochner

I am a great admirer of Akhil Reed Amar’s books The Bill of Rights and America’s Constitution. In fact, all PLF law clerks receive a copy of the latter as part of their assigned reading materials. Amar’s excellence as an expositor of the Constitution lies not just in his familiarity with the source materials of [...]

Taking the next step in challenging Obamacare

Pacific Legal Foundation continues to be on the front lines in the constitutional challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In a new complaint filed yesterday on behalf of client Matt Sissel, PLF attorneys have asked Judge Beryl Howell to rule that Congress ignored the Constitution’s Origination Clause when it enacted the Obamacare [...]

Fighting for economic liberty in Kentucky

Meet R.J. Bruner and his crew. Bruner (in the middle, there) is one of the many hardworking entrepreneurs who keep our economy thriving—and whose hard work and ingenuity improve the standard of living for all of us. Of course, when he founded Wildcat Moving two years ago, he didn’t do it as an act of [...]

Erwin Chemersinsky’s sad criticism of Knox v. SEIU

Dean Erwin Chemerinsky published this article last week on the ABA Journal’s website complaining about the Supreme Court’s decision in Knox v. SEIU. That’s the case in which the Supreme Court said that the union must ask non-members before it takes away their money to run a political campaign. As I explain here, the rule [...]

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