The Heartland Institute

Click the links below to download a PDF of the series of cease and desist letters The Heartland Institute sent to blogs and online publications that linked to and reproduced excerpts from the stolen and faked documents in the Fakegate scandal surrounding Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute. ...

The Wisconsin State Government Accountability Board, which regulates campaign finance, has issued a final rule requiring any person who engages in a communication by any means, including e-mail, the internet, or telephone, for a political purpose and who spends more than $25 in the process, to register with the state and disclose ...

Winston Churchill once said Russia was " a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." The same could be said of Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan's judicial philosophy and what it might portend for the opinions she would render if the Senate Judiciary Committee approves her nomination Tuesday and she is then confirmed ...

McDonald v. Chicago , 561 U.S. ___, 130 S.Ct. 3020 (2010), was a landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States on June 28, 2010, that determined whether the Second Amendment applies to the individual states. Maureen Martin, senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute, filed an amicus brief in that ...

Chicago's gun ban ordinance was enacted in 1982 to stem the increasing use of firearms in crimes in the city. From the beginning, the ordinance has been an utter failure in accomplishing that goal. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case brought by Chicago residents who want guns for self-defense but ...

The Illinois Supreme Court ruled in early February that caps on noneconomic damages in medical malpractice cases are unconstitutional under the Illinois Constitution. Extravagant jury awards of damages for noneconomic, intangible losses such as pain and suffering and loss of consortium (usually considered as the benefits of sex ...

Nothing brings a greedy gleam to the eye of a plaintiff s trial lawyer like a baby case, as they crudely call them. They mean a case against a doctor or hospital involving a baby allegedly injured or killed during the birthing process. The lawyers stand to pocket millions of dollars without even breaking a sweat. That is ...

One of the dirty little legislative secrets previously known only inside the Beltway, but now known everywhere thanks to proposed health care legislation, is that many members of Congress rarely read the text of the bills they vote on. A fundamental legal principle is that for every wrong there should be a remedy. In this ...

Heartland argues the Chicago handgun ban ordinance should be held unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. The ban has been completely ineffective in curbing handgun use in crimes of murder. And the petitioners need to possess handguns within their own homes for self-defense. In the 25 full years since Chicago passed its ...

The proposed federal health care overhaul, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin insists, will create “death panels,” with bureaucrats deciding who should live or die. Obamacare proponents scoff at the claim. It’s very difficult to tell from the text of the bills who’s right. And that’s a big problem. HR 3200, the bill furthest ...

Students in Marysville public schools are supposed to be learning not just the 3 R s but also how to think analytically, logically, and creatively, to integrate different experiences and knowledge to form reasoned judgments, and to explore and understand different perspectives. But not when it comes to global warming. Marysville ...

Is Judge Sonia Sotomayor a product of grinding poverty and beneficiary of affirmative action, and now a victim of its unintended consequences? Or has she instead cynically embraced affirmative action and romanticized her past as a way to further her judicial career? As the confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee ...

The Heartland Institute submitted the following comments in response to the United States Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA ) Notice of Rulemaking entitled Proposed Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act. For the reasons discussed below, for EPA Administrator ...

On Monday, April 27, 2009, The Heartland Institute filed an Amicus brief in the California Supreme Court supporting the defendants in the case who argue California cities and counties ought to be barred from hiring contingent fee lawyers to prosecute public nuisance cases. The Supreme Court ruled about 23 years ago that such ...

By making a way-too-clever " green" argument in a case involving a coal plant in a remote part of Utah, the Sierra Club has created a legal mess with nationwide ramifications. The case involves whether the Deseret Power Electric Cooperative must, under the federal Clean Air Act, limit emissions of carbon dioxide from an expansion ...

U.S. EPA issued a Clean Air Act permit last year to the Deseret Power Electric Cooperative, ending a three year process costing the utility millions of dollars. The Sierra Club has asked the EPA's Environmental Appeals Board to reject this permit because it does not require the utility to control emissions of carbon dioxide ...

Heartland in Print Milwaukee Journal Sentinel December 16, 2007 circ. 230,220 Visions of sugar plums must surely be dancing in the heads of unionized teachers in Wisconsin after the state Court of Appeals ruled Dec. 5 that only state-licensed teachers may teach students in Wisconsin public schools. The ruling came in ...

The Heartland Institute on January 31, 2008, submitted as amicus curiae (a friend of the court) a brief in support of reversal of the jury verdict last year against the paint company defendants in the State's public nuisance lawsuit. The verdict found that the " collective" presence of lead-based paint in private residences ...

Welcome to the Smoker’s Lounge, the place to go for sound science, economics, and legal commentary on tobacco issues. This “issue suite” cuts through the propaganda and exaggeration of anti-smoking groups by giving you access to the best available research and commentary from scores of independent research organizations, publications ...

In this issue: Lawyers Feast on Tainted Pet Food Driven to Distraction Will Sue for Food Dogged Determination Diagnosis: Money My Kind of 'Tonw' ...