On Wednesday, PLF attorneys filed a federal lawsuit—on behalf of Helina Beck and her company, Wavehuggers LLC—challenging California’s monopolistic grip on surf instruction at state beaches.

If Helina’s fight sounds familiar, it’s because it is: Earlier this year, we filed a similar lawsuit against the City of Newport Beach on behalf of Jason Murchison, a former Navy diver and the owner-operator of Learn to Surf.

Nebraska law requires state agencies to follow formal procedures when creating binding public rules. But the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has a habit of sidestepping those obligations—imposing heavy-handed mandates through informal bulletins instead of proper rulemaking.

These bureaucratic shortcuts aren’t just a hassle for service providers—they’re illegal. This week, PLF’s Collin Callahan shares the story of Integrated Life Choices, a Nebraska-based provider fighting to hold DHHS accountable.

Thirty-one years ago, PLF client Kirk Dahlstrom rolled the dice on a bankrupt sawmill in Southeastern Alaska. Today, his business—Viking Lumber—supplies wood to NASA, the U.S. military, and some of the world’s most prominent instrument makers.

But as Kirk’s daughter, Sarah Lehnert, recently explained in The Wall Street Journal, their family business—and the community it supports—is racing against the clock before the U.S. Forest Service forces Viking Lumber out of business:

“In our part of Alaska, the federal government owns approximately 94% of the land and controls access to timber resources... Not only has the Forest Service never met the timber-sale goals outlined in their [2016] management plan, in the past four years it offered less than 10% of the annual needs for the industry.”

On Wednesday, PLF released a new research report exposing the reality of outdated, anti-competitive Certificate of Need (CON) laws.

“CON laws are a permission slip for monopolies to keep out competition,” said PLF’s Jaimie Cavanaugh, coauthor of the report. “Patients in these states pay more, wait longer, and have fewer choices—all to protect special interests.”

Earlier this week, the City Council of Asheville, North Carolina, voted to eliminate race-based membership preferences for its Human Relations Commission following a lawsuit brought by local residents. 

PLF attorney Andrew Quinio, who represented the residents at the heart of the lawsuit, celebrated the victory, noting that “government has a constitutional duty to treat all people equally under the law.”