Advisor’s Resources

On Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 28, 2017, Santa Bar­bara City Coun­cil will con­sider  a tem­po­rary restric­tion on devel­op­ment projects pro­posed under the Aver­age Unit-Size Den­sity (AUD) Incen­tive Pro­gram. The AUD Incen­tive Pro­gram car­ries out a key imple­men­ta­tion action of the City’s 2011 Gen­eral Plan and is intended to encour­age smaller, more afford­able hous­ing units.

WASHINGTON — Pres­i­dent Trump on Tues­day nom­i­nated Judge Neil M. Gor­such to the Supreme Court, ele­vat­ing a con­ser­v­a­tive in the mold of Jus­tice Antonin Scalia to suc­ceed the late jurist and touch­ing off a bru­tal, par­ti­san show­down at the start of his pres­i­dency over the ide­o­log­i­cal bent of the nation’s high­est court.

Mr. Trump announced his selec­tion dur­ing a much-anticipated evening cer­e­mony that unfolded in prime time at the White House. He described Judge Gor­such, a fed­eral appeals court ...

In a 5–4 deci­sion, the US Supreme Court ruled on Mon­day that requir­ing family-owned cor­po­ra­tions to pay for insur­ance cov­er­age for con­tra­cep­tion vio­lated a 1993 fed­eral law pro­tect­ing reli­gious freedom.

The rul­ing in Bur­well v. Hobby Lobby Stores, No. 13–354, and Con­estoga Wood Spe­cial­ties v. Bur­well, No. 13–356, deals with the law­ful­ness of a part of the Afford­able Care Act that requires many employ­ers to pro­vide insur­ance cov­er­age for contraception.

The deci­sion, while nar­rowly apply­ing only to closely-held ...

Per­ceived By Many As Vic­tory for Undoc­u­mented Workers

In a 5–2 Deci­sion, the Califor­nia Supreme Court ruled Thurs­day that California’s legal pro­tec­tions for work­ers who suf­fer job dis­crim­i­na­tion extend to immi­grants who ille­gally use oth­ers’ Social Secu­rity num­bers to get their jobs.  See the full story here.

In its response to a cit­i­zen peti­tion sub­mit­ted under sec­tion 21 of the Toxic Sub­stances Con­trol Act (TSCA), EPA indi­cated that as a first step, it would con­vene a stake­holder process to develop an approach to obtain infor­ma­tion on chem­i­cal sub­stances and mix­tures used in hydraulic frac­tur­ing. To gather infor­ma­tion to inform EPA’s pro­posal, the Agency is issu­ing this advance notice of pro­posed rule­mak­ing (ANPR) and ini­ti­at­ing a pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion process to seek com­ment ...

Huge Win For EPA and Environmentalists  

“It bears men­tion that EPA is get­ting almost every­thing it wanted in this case.” –Jus­tice Antonin Scalia In a much-anticipated deci­sion, the United States Supreme Court on Mon­day gave what has been trum­peted as a huge vic­tory for envi­ron­men­tal­ists when it largely val­i­dated the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s (EPA’s) plans to reg­u­late major sources of greenhouse-gas emis­sions such as power plants and fac­to­ries. How­ever, in a rather blis­ter­ing deci­sion writ­ten ...