Mark welcomes James Burling, VP of Legal Affairs, Pacific Legal Foundation, for a conversation. His latest book “Nowhere to Live: The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis” will be released 8/13/2024. It was an interesting look into the legal world with regards to property rights.
Website: https://pacificlegal.org/
X: @PacificLegal
Buy the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Nowhere-Live-Hidden-Americas-Housing/dp/1510781536
Outro: ”Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight” – This score is in public domain and may be freely downloaded, printed, and performed. The sound file may be downloaded for personal use. For more information see https://lincolnlibraries.org/polley-music-library
Transcript:
(0:00) Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Knocked Conscious. Today I had the pleasure of (0:05) speaking with James Burling. He’s the Vice President of Legal Affairs for the Pacific (0:09) Legal Foundation.It was a great conversation. Here it is. I hope you enjoy it.I’ve got a face (0:16) for a radio so I’m not too worried about it. Most people don’t look at me. So welcome.So James, (0:23) you were at Freedom Fest, correct? And you were part of the panel. Let me pull the panel because (0:28) I want to make sure it’s correct. How government created the housing crisis and what we can do to (0:33) fix it.Is that correct? Correct. Excellent. And you are the VP of Legal Affairs for the (0:39) Pacific Legal Foundation.Is that correct? Correct. Excellent. Well, welcome to Knocked (0:45) Conscious, sir.I was at Freedom Fest and I met you, I believe we crossed paths a million times (0:52) because I was running around from room to room. Unfortunately, I did not see your panel. I was (0:56) at the How Nations Escape Poverty panel.So I apologize that I missed yours, but I’d love for (1:03) you to tell us about yourself, who you are, tell us about your organization and Freedom Fest and (1:09) any of the topics you want to start with because we have topics aplenty, sir. Absolutely. So we (1:17) started out, I’m James Burling.I am the Vice President of Legal Affairs at Pacific Legal (1:23) Foundation. And I have been at Pacific Legal Foundation for a little over 40 years now, (1:29) litigating property right cases, primarily environmental cases, all on behalf of property (1:34) and of course, all pro bono. And what our goal is to create progress in the appellate courts and the (1:43) Supreme Court that will positively affect property owners across the country, just not the individual (1:50) case that we have.And pretty successful. We have won 18 of our last 20 cases at the Supreme Court. (1:59) And I think that’s a track record that I’m happy about.I argued one of those cases, (2:04) it was Director of Litigation and overseeing a number of the other cases over the years. (2:11) We do specialize and have had quite some success in representing individuals at the Supreme Court. (2:17) And I don’t mean friend of the court only.I mean, 20 cases, people at the Supreme Court. (2:25) Our belief is that property rights are really critical to all our nations. I mean, you may (2:32) have heard this before, it’s been said, but it can’t be repeated too many times.(2:36) But if government owned the printing presses, how could there be a free press if you have to get a (2:42) permit from the government to do everything? What if the government owned the churches? (2:47) How could churches freely express their religion? Otherwise, you could be a nation like China (2:53) that has lots of churches, but you all have to have Chairman Xi in the background, above Jesus (2:59) or Muhammad, or you wouldn’t call him Muhammad, but in a large… (3:03) And North Korea is a good example as well, I’m sure. (3:05) Absolutely. And to the point of what we deal with in property rights and housing, (3:13) there are people that say, look, the government should own all housing.But if government owned (3:18) housing, or at least all low-income housing, how can people in that housing really run and argue (3:25) that their government is doing something wrong when they could be punished through their housing? (3:30) So I think freedom to own and use property, freedom to rent property without governmental (3:35) interference is critical to all of our freedoms. And so that’s kind of the core of what Pacific (3:42) Legal Foundation has done over its 51 years in existence. And I like to think that we have (3:50) contributed positively to freedom in America.That’s a beautiful cause. So I watched a couple (3:58) previous podcasts with you on it, and you got into this very early, but my understanding is you (4:04) got into it not actually on this side, you kind of got in from the other side, is that correct? (4:10) Well, not necessarily. I mean, I started as a productive member of society, I was a geologist, (4:16) and I did exploration geology.That’s right, geology, that’s right. (4:19) But when I was in school, growing up, I read the New York Times, and I believed what I read. And (4:28) I was, you know, fairly law-oriented, but when I started working for a living, and especially when (4:36) I started as a geologist, and seeing how the public lands were being mismanaged by government, (4:42) and seeing how government was taking away from individuals the freedom to use their property, (4:48) they had inholdings within a national forest, or whether they were neighboring federal land, (4:55) or whether they had cattle, timber leases, or cattle leases, grazing leases from the federal (5:00) government, see how the federal government was terribly mismanaging the lands.And I had a number (5:07) of epiphany, I realized that, you know, more government is not necessarily better. Government (5:12) is making things worse on the public lands. And I decided, eventually, I was inspired by some (5:18) federal bureaucrats I had to deal with, to go to law school, to fight that kind of thing.And I (5:24) went to law school with a purpose of fighting bureaucracy. And I got my dream job 41 years ago, (5:31) for Pacific Legal Foundation to do that. So yeah, I started out kind of on the left, (5:38) a series of epiphanies.And I’m, I think I’m right in the middle right now. (5:42) I strongly believe in the values that all Americans are entitled to rights, and all (5:48) Americans should have opportunities in the country. But not necessarily a quality of outcome, (5:53) certainly, because if you do that, you shoehorn people into places they might not belong.(6:00) And you’re being unfair if you try to guarantee outcomes, but guarantees of opportunity, (6:07) I think, are critical. I think that’s, I think that’s a beautiful way to say it. A couple things (6:12) from from what you just shared.Sean is a gentleman I befriended recently. He’s on a (6:17) podcast called Buds in Reality, very libertarian minded. And he can’t, he’s got this great, (6:23) kind of great quote, it’s just no one starts out a libertarian.We come to this, we come to this (6:30) epiphany through experience. I’m a grade A neocon from the right. So you came from your side, (6:36) I came from my side, you know, for example, Recktenwald was the libertarian nominee up until (6:40) the point he wasn’t.He’s a Marxist, you know, so none of none of us have started out, usually, (6:46) we’ve started out with some ideology that was implanted and ingrained in us over time that (6:51) we have kind of been brainwashed that we had to deprogram over all this time. How is it that you (6:56) had gotten it so early in your mind from such a short time, because it took me 2030 years, (7:04) I’m still working on the deprogramming? Yeah, I mean, I had an inherent distrust of government, (7:11) growing up in the 60s, born in 54. The Vietnam War consumed my early years, and I had a growing (7:22) distrust of what the government was doing in Vietnam.I understand that we wanted to stop (7:28) communism, I certainly understand to this day, that communism is a very bad thing. But the way (7:34) we are going about it, and the way we’re using American youth as cannon fodder to fight a war (7:41) that we didn’t want to necessarily win, or we wouldn’t win, seemed to me to be wrong. So I mean, (7:47) that there’s a liberal zeitgeist at that time, if you’re opposed to the Vietnam War, then you have (7:52) to buy into all these other liberal ideas.And I fell within that trap, if you will. (7:59) Yeah, which we all do, because you have to get labeled. I mean, you have to pick a side, (8:03) right? It really is this duopoly, which is really a uniparty kind of piece now.But it really was a (8:08) left-right kind of ideology, because I was Iraq, I got pulled into Iraq, I even enlisted, you know. (8:13) So I failed the physical, but I enlisted. So it was one of those things where I was bought into (8:18) defending freedom, defending democracy.And now it’s… (8:22) And it’s, you know, these are wonderful ideas. Ideals, defending freedom, defending democracy, (8:27) these are good things. But it doesn’t necessarily mean government knows the best way of going about (8:34) it.In fact, it often doesn’t. Because the larger government gets, and the bigger and more monolithic (8:41) our government gets, I think the less it is able to understand the principles that underlie (8:47) that government. You look at what our founding fathers were concerned about (8:51) back in the 18th century, in the late 1700s.I mean, they viewed with a philosophy of people (8:57) like John Locke and Montesquieu, realizing that the government is tyrannical, and they did their (9:04) level best to prevent our government from becoming tyrannical. But the problem is we have so many good (9:11) intentions. We want government to sue so many things, protect ourselves from famine, protect (9:17) ourselves from crop failures, protect ourselves from economic dislocation, protect the rest of (9:23) the world from forces that are malevolent in size.And we take on this mission creep of the federal (9:29) government, where it becomes more and more powerful, more and more controlling of our lives. (9:34) And the only way that you can have a government that runs, that has so many things going on, (9:39) is to control the people that it is governing, rather than people who are being governed, (9:46) control that government. And so there is this really inexorable trend that as government gets (9:53) larger, people’s rights necessarily get smaller.I mean, it’s not to the point that we’ve gotten (10:00) to some dictator. I think Stalin understood well that you have this great ism, this great idea (10:06) of communism, but it doesn’t work in human nature. So you have to kill off a lot of people, (10:11) right? You have the, you know, you go off and starve a lot of the kulaks in Ukraine, (10:16) or Pol Pot kills everybody who’s educated, or in North Korea, you just get rid of people and (10:25) you put them into camps.Or the Germans. The Germans and the Jews. They all had one enemy (10:31) that they could focus on within their population that they could find.(10:35) And sometimes when you get rid of one enemy, you have to find another. But it’s because (10:40) nature doesn’t conform to one particular box. You can’t, everybody doesn’t fit into it.(10:47) Different. And that’s very problematic for a government that wants to control everything, (10:52) because some people, they control, they don’t fit into the boxes. So a specific legal foundation (10:57) does its litigation, looking for those people that really don’t fit in within that government (11:03) box.They have, they want to use that the local government doesn’t want them to use. (11:09) They have land that has been declared some kind of habitat, but they want to run cattle on that (11:14) land. They want to do something with it.And they aren’t willing to be controlled and simply say, (11:21) yes, sir, whatever you say you’re doing with my land, I want to do. So we go to court and (11:27) we litigate. And fortunately, this courts in this country, courts remain fairly powerful.(11:34) Courts are for our freedoms that don’t exist in other courts. I mean, we talked about the Soviet (11:40) Union. They had a wonderful constitution.I mean, I love reading the constitution and all the (11:46) given to the people. You know, there were some exceptions, but by and large, it’s a great (11:51) constitution. It wasn’t worth the paper it was written on because you could not enforce those (11:57) rights against the dictatorship.This country, we still have the hope of going to court. It’s not (12:04) easy, not cheap. It’s not short.It’s difficult. And we have to warn our clients that, you know, (12:11) before you begin this, this is going to be a long process. It’s going to take quite some time, (12:17) but if you stick with it, you have the chance of advancing freedom in this country just a bit, (12:24) maybe quite a bit if the case goes really the right way.So that’s what we try to do. (12:30) It’s a beautiful thing. So do you work with just land property or with like cattle as property (12:35) and those types of other pieces? We primarily deal with land, but there are other (12:41) things because property embraces a lot of different things, not only real property, (12:47) not only personal property, but I love my favorite essays is James Madison’s essay on property (12:54) that he wrote into the New Republic.And he talks about property in expansive terms, (12:59) property being the right to the way you want, the right to have the job you want, (13:05) all these things he considered part of our property. And I take this expansive view of (13:10) property. And other times the Supreme Court is, you know, these things are not disconnected.(13:17) They’re not atomistic things. You have your property here, your personal property here, (13:22) your rights over here. They’re all intertwined.And if you start picking some away, the whole (13:28) bundle is going to fall apart. So, you know, we focus real property because that’s what our (13:34) bread and butter is. And that’s where some of the strongest abuses are, but exclusively.(13:40) And the reason I was asking that, for example, is Thomas Masson’s been behind that act about (13:45) tagging cattle. And we know the reason for this is for these control mechanisms and (13:51) it’s complete governmental control to know where everything’s going, how it’s being this (13:56) knowing, oh, we’re going to call, you know, the odd number, the odd number tags today, (14:00) because there’s some fake flu or epidemic going around that we need to do something about. (14:06) I’m curious if you had any business with any of those types of cases.(14:10) No, we have not been directly involved in those kinds of cases. I think they (14:14) raise a very interesting point. And I could, let me go back to these, or there’s a case called (14:20) Wickard versus Filburn, 40s and early 50s, where a Kansas farmer was prohibited from growing (14:27) wheat on his own property for his own personal consumption.And Congress can try to control that (14:36) because, and the Senator said it was okay, because if he didn’t buy, if he didn’t have his own wheat (14:42) to consume, buy it on the market, therefore he had an indirect effect on the market. So government, (14:49) when they talk about tagging cattle or telling you that you can’t grow wheat on your own, (14:54) it is really a control mechanism. So the people that are worried about, you know, (14:59) cattle or might be confiscated, well, wheat was confiscated, right? You couldn’t sell wheat.(15:05) You couldn’t grow wheat. Well, we know hemp was illegal for all that time when (15:11) hemp was being grown in Jefferson’s and Washington’s farms, for example. (15:15) I know that became an illegal crop as well.Yeah. And we find new boogeyman, new things (15:21) that are wrong, new things you want to control. I mean, temperance movement and the pro are (15:26) classic examples that things you try to control, you can’t control.And so maybe you should think (15:33) of a better way of trying to control the population, like not trying that. So I think (15:41) what we see in government is, as I said, an inexorable growth curve, because this is what (15:50) people seem to want, right? We’re going into an election now and one of the parties is talking (15:56) about nationwide rent control. We’re going to make sure everybody has a free lunch.(16:03) Everybody’s going to have a free lunch and so on and so forth. So all these programs, (16:06) they’re not cost free. And when I say they’re not cost free, I’m not talking about costs in (16:11) economic terms and tax dollars only.They have a cost on our freedom in some degree, (16:18) fashion or another. Sometimes you can’t anticipate what the freedom costs will be (16:22) from a program, but they’re there. I mean, rent control, what’s that going to do? (16:27) If you have nationwide rent control, it looks, oh, only a big corporation now that have only (16:33) more than 50 properties, but you know how long those limits will be there.(16:39) Soon you will have eviction moratoria like we had during COVID, where landlords cannot (16:44) rent. So what’s that going to do? People are going to get out of the rental business. (16:49) They’re going to stop building rental properties.That’s happening already. More and more pressure (16:53) for government housing projects. Soon we’ll have more and more government housing projects, (16:58) because nobody’s going to want to build housing in an environment where there is pervasive rent (17:04) control or threat of rent control.That’s a property that we’ve been involved in for a long (17:10) time, fighting incursions on the ability of people to rent property market prices, because it has (17:17) such a severe impact on housing. And that’s things in this book that I wrote that I talked (17:23) about at Freedom Fest, Nowhere to Live, The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis. (17:28) I talk about all these things that combine together to create disincentives for people (17:33) to build homes near where people want to buy them, causing a limit on supply, but demand remains (17:40) strong.So prices go up and up and up. People can’t afford homes. People end up on the streets (17:45) and sidewalks across our cities like never seen before.And the solution is not more government. (17:52) The solution is less. And that’s certain.And what we’re seeing is more what I’d like to see (18:00) is more of a late stage capitalism in the fact where it’s been corrupted, where it’s come full (18:04) circle now and infested the government. We’re watching Boeing has two astronauts stranded on (18:10) a space station right now. I mean, what? Alex Jones was fined four times what Boeing Corporation (18:19) was fined, and they killed 700 people with their software that they that they put on those planes.(18:25) That’s just a fact. I know the weight and balance. I’m a pilot, actually.So I study very much into (18:30) that. It’s pretty crazy. I’ll make that bold claim.I’m fine. I’ll take it. I’ll take any (18:34) heat that I get for that.But it’s just unbelievable. We’re watching this. So when we watch (18:39) it come full back around, you’re seeing this.When Covid hit, the first thing was 100 employees or (18:45) something. I called my employer and I said, I am not taking the vaccine if I need to stay home the (18:50) rest of my life. I am not taking this vaccine.And he said, I’m not worried it’s not going to (18:55) get to our size. I go, it’s going to get to our size because we’re letting it get to this size (19:00) because the second that crack starts, everybody wants to rip it even further apart. And it takes (19:06) 10 times the effort to rescue or retract something once it’s been implemented.Yeah. And I think (19:11) want to create vaccines. Great.If people want to take them, great. Look, I have 103 year old. (19:18) And so I will take the vaccine just on the infinitesimal chance that it might save her life (19:23) to do that.I know there’s a risk, but it’s a risk I’m willing to take for her. But nobody should (19:29) be to do this. Nobody should tell me that I can’t go into a restaurant.I can’t get on an airplane. (19:34) I can’t get on a train. I can’t go public.In fact, I have to stay home and isolate myself for (19:39) the next three years or whatever, uh, taking away personal choice. And yeah, I understand the (19:44) argument that, well, if enough people, the vaccine it’ll spread more, but we have to realize that (19:52) just because the greater public wants something doesn’t mean that we all fit in the same box. So (19:59) I want to take the vaccine, more power to you and anybody else out there, but it’s not my, (20:05) my choice to tell you to take it or not to take it is you say, Hey, it’s available.(20:11) It’s your choice. Not mine. Yeah.And that’s, that’s kind of where we’re at. (20:17) So, so I can, I keep throwing curve balls at you because I’m infinitely curious. Obviously you’ve, (20:23) you’ve spoken about what you know so well in all the property pieces.Have you ever dealt with any (20:27) water rights cases? Cause we’re seeing a lot of corporations like Walton’s buying up the Colorado (20:32) river, buying up California water left and right. Idaho has now been now implement or stopped (20:39) allowing farmers on their own water to use their own wells that they’ve dug, things like that. (20:44) Have you dealt with any of those types? We’ve dealt a bit with property rights and, uh, (20:50) and related to some grazing cases where the forest service told people, well, yeah, yeah, (20:56) what a right, but you just can’t get to it.You can’t put a pipeline to get the water to your (21:01) ranch and therefore your water’s worth nothing. But yeah, when you have, when you have a limited (21:07) resource West, water is certainly a limited resource. Uh, many people have rights, but when (21:16) they become scarcer, many more people want those rights.And what you are seeing with corporate (21:23) X taking over or a government take over water rights is a, as a sense that, you know, (21:30) who’s in power gets the rights, who’s who lacked the power. You can see that in all kinds of (21:36) contexts. You see that in the main where small property owners get their property taken for some (21:42) redevelopment project.That’s the billing of the local politicians. You will see that in people (21:48) trying to build homes on the coast of California, where the coastal commission makes it virtually (21:54) impossible. So those, the home see their values go up and up and up and they got what they want (22:01) and keep everybody out.So there’s very much in this property rights arena and the water rates, (22:08) kind of a big guy versus little guy Zyde guest where the two are in power, uh, acquire what they (22:17) can any way they can. And that, I think the courts are the only, and sometimes not a very (22:25) good hope, but they’re the last hope out there oftentimes. Yeah.They’re kind of small sometimes. (22:31) Help me, SCOTUS. You’re my only hope.Yeah. I mean, I know we, we, we look, we have the (22:36) best Supreme court that I’ve had. It’s the best system we’re going to have.I mean, what, (22:41) what you can’t, you’re, there’s no perfect system. There’s just no, there’s no perfect system. (22:46) No, there can’t be a perfect system.Certainly not for, and that’s why you want to limit the (22:50) powers as much as possible because it’s so imperfect because it’s fallible. You don’t want (22:55) to, you just want to limit its reach, its scope, its ability to affect everyone so greatly. That’s (23:02) all has nothing to do whether it exists or not.It’s just whether it’s powerful or not. (23:05) Yeah. I mean, and that’s, that’s bottom line, libertarian philosophy.I mean, we all disagree (23:09) about many things, right. And what should be banned and who should ban even within the libertarian (23:13) philosophy with this? Absolutely. I mean, no two libertarians can get in the same room and agree (23:18) on everything, but that’s the of this country that we can still get along and we can still (23:26) try to achieve our goals as you know, in different ways.And the goals are very some degree, (23:32) but we all have a skepticism that is all the libertarians things. And I’m not a pure libertarian. (23:37) Okay.Like, you know, fine, but we, I think it’s very hard to do that. (23:43) Yeah. I won’t talk about where the libertarian party is right now and what, you know, (23:51) no, no, no, no.I just, I just did a podcast with a Recton Wald. We literally dished about (23:58) the libertarian convention. We talked about all of it.They, they are not happy with me right now. (24:02) So I have no issue with you sharing anything you’d like to share, but I also don’t want to (24:07) put you on the spot. So please feel free to share with you.I am not close enough to have observed (24:13) enough except from a distance. And I just shake my head and say, what are these guys doing to (24:18) themselves? And that’s about right down the middle. Yeah, it was an interest.It’s, it’s (24:23) an interesting thing. It’s literally like 50.149. It is, it is almost right down that middle there (24:30) for sure. Something will come out of it, but you know, I’m actually concerned.(24:38) I’m concerned that they really dealt themselves a death blow to be honest. I’m not, (24:41) I’m very concerned with the candidate that they, that they ultimately chose is going to hurt them (24:46) net because the people that come to that realization that they come to protect children above all, (24:53) just that simple. There’s no other way around it.Children come first, foremost and everything. (24:58) So it’s just one of those things. Yeah.I, I saw, I saw that at Freedom Fest and I was, (25:08) anyway, I won’t go there. Yeah, no, no worries. Like I said, I’ve had, I’ve had my conversations (25:14) with them as well.Yeah. But you know, so what I’d love for you to share if you could, oh, (25:20) go ahead, go ahead. Do you have a point? No, I, I guess my point is that, you know, we’re, (25:26) we’re going to be stuck with one way or the other, one of the major parties, right? So we have to (25:31) figure out how to deal with that party.So, you know, a little aside, back in 2016, when it looked (25:38) like Hillary Clinton was going to win by a landslide. 92 to 8. Yeah. I was director of litigation at (25:45) Pacific Legal Foundation.And what I was just racking my brain is I said, we’re going to lose (25:50) the Supreme court. Somebody far more liberal and worse than Merrick Garland, if that’s possible, (25:56) is going to be in the Supreme court. We’re going to have retirements on our side, (25:59) just aging out.And what are we going to do as a litigation group to deal with a hostile Supreme (26:08) court? So this is what I was thinking up until a few hours into election night Eve. And I said, (26:14) oh my God, we have an opportunity here, but perhaps the opportunity of a lifetime. And indeed, (26:21) that’s where we are.Again, not a perfect institution. Not everybody fits right in (26:28) my mold on the Supreme. Some are better than others, you know, shout out to there.(26:33) There are net better, right? I mean, we can’t, like I said, we got to, we got to go, (26:37) we got to pick with what we have, right? Yeah. And what we have now is really, really (26:41) a court, which is why the media and the left is so focused on trying to distract everybody, (26:50) trying to de-legitimatize the court. We’ve always had people talking about packing it.(26:54) They’re talking about shorting term. Yeah. They’re talking about a bunch.(26:57) We’re talking about having them just torn ethics complaints that will, anybody could file an ethics (27:03) complaint. You look what happened to judge Cannon, a thousand ethics complaints against her. And the (27:08) court of appeal finally had to shut them down saying no more complaint because they want to (27:14) destroy her.They want to destroy the US Supreme court because they can’t control it. During the (27:21) court of the Warren court years and the Berger court year, people like me were upset with the (27:26) court. We thought the court was destroying precedents, you know, with doctrines that (27:31) just had no basis in the constitution.And it’s a trend that had been going on a good deal. (27:36) And now finally, for the first time in almost a century, the courts come back around, I think, (27:42) closer to first principles than it has been in a long time. And I’m quite happy about that.But (27:48) as you can see, the people who are statists, who really want to have government agencies control (27:55) everything are very upset. They realize they can’t win in litigation in court anymore. So (28:01) they’re going to try to destroy the court one way or the other, so they can have her back.(28:07) Yeah. So to that, we’re talking SCOTUS. So there are a couple of recent rulings.I would assume (28:14) the Chevron deference really must have opened up some cases that you could pursue now, now that (28:21) it’s going to be retroactive? Yeah. I mean, Chevron deference is a curious beast. Back when… (28:27) Would you like to share a little bit about that, just to kind of explain it from a layman’s term (28:31) to a lot of people? Because people think Chevron, they think the gas, you know, obviously (28:36) it has to do with a case, but what does it mean and what are those implications? (28:40) Back when Chevron was first opened many years ago, back, what, 40 years ago or so, (28:46) uh, what happened was that the EPA was somewhat middle of the road and it had a (28:53) relation dealing with power plant pollution.And the idea was you put it essentially a (28:59) miracle bubble over the power plant. So if you fixed one of the boilers to make it (29:06) less, that would be a good net gain overall. And you wouldn’t have to then boil her over again.(29:13) But a court of appeal said, no, you can’t do everything in a bubble. If you have to get a (29:18) permitting for the plant, you have to look at everything in the plant in every permit, (29:22) every stack of less pollution and meet the standards than it did before. Well, that made (29:28) no sense.It was counterproductive, but a court of appeal agreed with the environmentalists, the (29:34) national resource defense council that the lawsuit, and they struck down the rule and essentially (29:39) wrote their rule themselves, the court of appeal. And so the Supreme court legitimately said, wait (29:44) a second, court of appeal, you can’t be writing legislative and said, Oh, you have to defer to the (29:50) agency. And in that particular case, it kind of made sense.But the problem was the agency soon (29:56) realized that if the courts had to defer agency interpretations of the law, and there were no (30:04) checks on that, the agencies could become and did become very, very creative in expanding the power (30:11) for what they could regulate and the way they could regulate it and the standards they would (30:16) regulate with. And so the agencies began to irrigate all kinds of power that were not part (30:22) of their congressional mandates. And that’s when people began to- (30:28) And then you have things like the FDA, the FDA person would be coming right out of big pharma (30:32) and go right into the FDA and have that revolving door.You’d have the, you know, those big, (30:37) you know, the big pharma, the institutions would then be corporatized by the people who were (30:43) running those institutions. And then they would be able to write those own laws per them being (30:48) the experts now. I mean, it’s classic Gordon Tulloch, the Nobel Laureate talking about rent seeking (30:53) ideas that when you have a regulatory regime that has great power over an industry, (30:59) the industry is going to get smart and do whatever it can to go in and control (31:05) the regulations being written.And that’ll happen whether it’s the big pharma or (31:12) whether it’s the environmental industry. The environmental industrial complex, (31:18) the people that, you know, make tens, hundreds of millions of dollars through fundraising for (31:23) the environment, they have a stake. So everybody has a stake of going to the agency and getting (31:29) more shunted their way, whether it’s this environmentalist here, this industry player here, (31:36) rent seeking is all about what naturally follows from government having power over something.(31:42) When government has power over something, those that has power over will try to bend (31:47) relations their own way. And what that means is the big guys are the ones that make in the end, (31:55) the little guys. We’re finding that with the internet.We’re clearly finding that with the (31:59) internet. Look, we’re finding that how, for example, East Palestine’s a great example. (32:03) The wheel bearing system was from the eighteen hundreds.If regulations were about safety, (32:09) I think they would have addressed an eighteen hundreds wheel bearing system, right? (32:13) You know, it clearly wasn’t a regulations aren’t to protect there to keep new industry out. We’re (32:19) finding, right, because these companies by the by the lobbyists to write legislation that prohibits (32:26) new growth, prohibits competition, not actual safety for us. They just they just frame it that (32:32) way.They manufacture that consent. Yeah. And in my book, Nowhere to Live, (32:37) The Hidden Story of American Crisis, I talk about rent seeking and I talk about Gordon Tillich a (32:42) little bit in late terms, talk about the context of eminent domain, for example.You’ve given (32:49) tremendous power over redevelopment agencies. They get to pick and choose what areas of the city (32:55) they want to have control over. They get to pick and choose what areas get demolished, which is (33:00) usually working class neighborhoods that don’t have the political clout to stop it.And they get (33:07) to choose what kind of favorite project. I mean, I talk about Poletown in Detroit. It was a (33:12) ethnically mixed neighborhood, but it was a neighborhood, lots of churches, lots of businesses.(33:19) But the city thought it’d be much better for a big General Motors plant. And Poletown was raised. (33:25) And I have some pictures of the Poletown in my book, Nowhere to Live.And it was replaced by a (33:31) General Motors plant, which a couple of years later was abandoned because it made no sense (33:36) for General Motors to continue that. And, you know, you talk about the Kelo case out of Connecticut, (33:42) where the city fathers got together with pharmaceutical and they destroyed an entire (33:48) middle-class neighborhood to make way for pharmaceutical headquarters. And then Pfizer, (33:53) of course, leaves a decade later.So it’s kind of running on the local level where a powerful- (33:59) Wasn’t there a Snapdragon or isn’t there a Snapdragon communications chip manufacturing (34:07) plant that got all hundreds of millions of dollars, didn’t even break ground, (34:11) and now they’ve already abandoned it? Yeah. I mean, it happens all the time. (34:16) That huge amounts of money are shoveled out at some favored industry, not because- (34:22) And we don’t look at the hidden costs.For example, I’m in Phoenix, we have a light rail system. (34:26) And as they’re building the light rail system, all the businesses up and down that light rail (34:30) system are being directly affected because people are not going through the hassle of navigating (34:34) through the traffic or whatever the potholes, whatever, to get to said business or whatnot. (34:40) So restaurants closing down, up and down, because they only have half the access now because the (34:44) light rail’s in the way, things like that.It’s pretty interesting. (34:48) And government generally will not compensate people for that. I’ve been in so many eminent (34:53) demand cases where I think to myself, why aren’t they just doing the right thing and paying people (34:59) for the property that they’re taking? Paying full value for the property rather than trying to (35:04) nickel and dime.And nowhere to live, I go into cities. Here’s a horror story for you. Florida (35:12) Everglades, the park service went around to communities and said, we want you to rezone the (35:17) property because it’s going to protect nature.Then the park service comes in behind and condemns (35:24) that property to expand Everglades National Park. But then they said, well, if property wasn’t worth (35:30) too much because it was rezoned at lower use at our behest. So they go in, had a rezone so they (35:36) could get it for cheap.And then the second parcel is they would condemn maybe a dozen (35:42) parcels of property at a time. If anybody had the wherewithal to get an attorney to represent them, (35:48) to argue that their fair market value was what it was, the federal government would dismiss those (35:55) people with attorneys. And then they would bludgeon the people without attorneys into (36:00) accepting a low price.Then they would go after the attorneys and said, well, what is market price? (36:05) Market price is what we pay to those people without attorney. (36:10) Right. And that’s what comps are, right? So they’ve already comped the market by (36:13) buying at the lower price.By manipulating the market. Yeah. And this was the case.(36:19) Well, it’s like the housing crisis in California. These guys are getting paid six figures to solve (36:23) the crisis. Of course, they’re not going to solve the crisis.They won’t have a job solving (36:28) the problem if they fix it. It’s just one of those clear, easy things that you just look at (36:34) that’s like, yeah, that problem gives me a job. So why would I ultimately want to fix it? (36:40) So Mark, let me ask you this.If you could just guess for me what it costs to build a (36:45) apartment unit per unit, not the apartment complex, not the building, but apartment (36:51) in parts of California right now. Per unit, I would guess $350,000. (37:00) A million bucks.I have a 3X and I kept crimping it up in my head. I’m like, oh my gosh. (37:08) Yeah.I have photographed in my book, Nowhere to Live, of a housing project in California (37:14) that costs a million dollars a unit. But you have to understand the project. You kind of understand (37:20) why.One, it’s beachfront property. Low income has on beachfront property. And two, there’s a (37:26) big sign in front of it saying union made, proudly built by the union.So there’s union (37:32) labor rules involved. And you and I, get the sticks and bricks. If we can get the land and (37:38) if you get the permits to build, good luck.You would build something like that for a quarter of (37:43) that, $200,000, $250,000 at most. But this isn’t the one. There are other projects, $800,000 in LA (37:51) a million dollars.LA passed the measure. I talk about this in the book too, of $1.2 billion to (37:59) solve that crisis about 10 years ago. But if you do the math, you take 1.2 billion, you divide it (38:05) by a billion, you end up, you only have 1,200 units for apartments.So maybe you can fit 3,000 (38:10) people under that. And there’s 6,000 homeless people on the streets of LA. I mean- (38:16) With 100,000 or so now, right? I mean, the tents are just lined up the streets, (38:19) up and down the streets now.But Gavin Newsom said he’s going to keep (38:24) them. So I have quite confidence in Governor Newsom to take care of the problem for us. (38:29) He’s ordered the homeless to be moved out.So next problem, please. (38:34) Yeah. He’s just, I can’t even with that guy.So, well, it’s been a very pleasant conversation. (38:40) It’s been great. Thank you for sharing.I’d love for you to share your most recent victory, (38:45) if you could, before we call it, because there’s nothing like a good inspiration to go into the (38:50) weekend. If you could give us a nice victory story about some case that you had litigated. (38:56) Let me tell you about the story of George Sheets.George, 73-year-old man, (39:02) he has a wife and he has a grandson that he wanted to raise. He bought acres of property in rural (39:07) El Dorado County, which is just east of Sacramento. And he wanted a manufactured home on this 10 acres (39:14) of 1,858 square feet.Told by the county though, that he has to pay a traffic impact fee of $23,400. (39:25) And the fee was to improve traffic throughout the county. 10% of that was to improve a highway (39:33) interchange on Interstate Highway 50, which is five miles by road from his property.(39:39) So he objected to that and the California court said pound sand. Because the county came up with (39:49) this, the County Board of Supervisors, a legislative act, and the courts can’t pass a legislative act. (39:55) They have to defer to the legislature.And this kind of fee, $23,400 for traffic impact fee, (40:03) is on top of, of course, fees for schools, fees for police, fees for fire, fees for parks, (40:10) fees for property. All the other taxes that you would get. In California, typically if you want (40:15) to build a home or an apartment, you have fees between $20,000 and $158,000 per unit.(40:23) So we challenged this. We said that, we went to the Supreme Court and our argument was the county (40:31) can’t impose this kind of fee unless the county can prove what George Sheets is doing on his (40:37) property is actually going to cause $23,400 impact on traffic. Because we don’t think the county can.(40:46) The county had a big traffic study. The study itself showed that residential properties like (40:51) this don’t cause that big of a deal, but it did have other people like taxpayers or businesses, (40:57) larger businesses pay for this. And so the court agreed with us and said, no, (41:04) George Sheets doesn’t have to pay this fee unless and until the county can prove it.(41:10) So it was a nice victory for Senator George Sheets, this little guy that we represented for (41:15) free at the Supreme Court. And we like to think that we have a court that understands the little (41:22) guy like George Sheets. The property rights of somebody like George Sheets are important.And (41:28) that’s why I tell the pizza story in my book, Nowhere to Live, the hidden story of America’s (41:33) housing crisis. And a lot of others like that. The most recent victory that we’ve had in the (41:38) Supreme Court.And I feel really good about that because it’s a tremendous favor for George. (41:44) And we also, for many, many other people are facing these exorbitant fees in California for (41:51) trying to simply build homes. We want to get out of the crisis.We need to allow private (41:56) individuals to build homes on their property that the people of California want to live in, (42:03) or the rest of the nation for that matter. I’ve even heard stories that they’re trying to get (42:09) people for taxes for leaving the state. That’s a proposal.That’s a proposal to have an exit tax (42:17) that if you leave the state, you have to pay maybe 10% of your net wealth to the California (42:22) government because California- Because you’re leaving. Of course, why wouldn’t you have to (42:27) pay them to leave? Why wouldn’t you? Hotel California, right? You can check in, (42:32) but you can never leave without paying a huge amount of money. (42:37) That’s beautiful.Well, thank you so much for this conversation, James. Welcome to the (42:44) closing words. Any way we could contact you or connect with you, please feel free to share all (42:50) your connections, social media, your websites, and all your other information, as well as your book.(42:55) Absolutely. Yeah. So if you want to work in the many cases the Civic Legal Foundation has, (43:00) I said we’ve had 18 victories at the Supreme Court, 20 over their 50 years of existence, (43:06) check us out, pacificlegal.org. You can find all about us there, and we’re a non-profit, (43:13) and you can figure out how that works as well.And if you’re interested in my new book that’s (43:18) coming out on August 13th, Know Where to Live? The Hidden Story of America’s Housing Crisis, (43:24) we have a website, knowwheretolive.org, or you can just go to Amazon or any one of those places (43:30) to find advanced copies of the book. I think it will open your eyes. I write it in layman’s (43:36) language.I don’t write it just for attorneys. It goes into some of the history of the early (43:42) cases of rent control after the Civil War, some of the early cases dealing with zoning, when we had (43:50) the first cases which were to make it a crime for a black person to move into a white neighborhood, (43:55) or vice versa. So kinds of fascinating stories that most people haven’t heard of, but I think (44:01) you’ll find it really interesting, knowwheretolive.org or pacificlegal.org. Excellent.I will (44:08) definitely put those up in the show notes as well. So thank you again for sharing your Friday (44:13) afternoon with us. I know it’s probably been a crazy week for you, and I hope you have yourself (44:18) a great weekend.Thank you, Mark. Great being with you. Thank you so much.We’ll talk again soon. (44:24) Take care.