< Changing Worldviews.Commentary >

Words are powerful - Thoughts shape - Ideas have consequences

David Stirling

Pacific Legal Foundation
Posted March 29, 2004

Free Enterprise Program
Or Government Regulatory Enforcement Bureaucracy

America’s hallmark always has been the vibrant entrepreneurial spirit and energy of its people. Indeed, American free enterprise has facilitated the success stories of millions of individuals and businesses that have, in turn, driven the most productive, progressive and responsive economy in the history of the world.

But there is mounting concern that over the course of the past three decades, that traditional entrepreneurial spirit and energy have been weakened by a parasitic condition. Unless the condition is addressed, it will eventually succeed in sapping the entrepreneurial spirit and energy so vital to free enterprise. The two parasite-like forces causing this condition are the out-of-control civil liability system and the overreaching, wasteful and ever-expanding government regulatory enforcement bureaucracy.

Civil Liability System — Today, unprincipled and excessive legal actions claiming enormous damages are constantly eroding and undermining our traditional notion of “personal responsibility” and pose a genuine threat to the principles of free enterprise in America. Indeed, three decades of creative expansion of these legal tools and remedies through the courts has contributed to characterization of the civil liability system as “jackpot justice.”

Government Regulatory Enforcement Bureaucracy — All across America, hundreds of times daily, people engaged in business are hammered by government regulatory enforcement bureaucrats who increasingly display a mind-set of power and control; of exacting a “pound of flesh”; of zealously pursuing technical, minimal violations; and of seeking capitulation from the mostly honest, hard-working, businesspeople who make up the nation’s largest employer group.

The traditional approach to addressing these concerns is to lobby the Congress or the various state legislatures in the hope of gaining some measure of tort reform or regulatory relief. Attempts also are made to lobby the executive branch to veto objectionable bills and limit the myriad of excessive, duplicative and costly regulations. But a missing piece of these efforts, one holding significant promise, is the use of the courts to gain relief. This is the purpose of Pacific Legal Foundation’s Free Enterprise Program.

It must be recognized that each harmful statute and each invasive regulation was itself entertained, facilitated, interpreted—indeed, “given life”—by the courts. Since 1973, PLF has engaged in precedent-setting litigation in the state and federal courts, making it uniquely qualified to defend and help reinvigorate American free enterprise in the courts through its Free Enterprise Program

Reprinted by permission by David Stirling

David Stirling is Vice-President of Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based public interest legal organization that defends balanced environmentalism in the nation’s courts. David is former California Chief Duputy Attorney General, a former Superior Court Judge, a three term Member of the California State Assembly, and served as General Counsel of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board for six years under Governor George Deukmejian. (www.pacificlegal.org; e- mail: mds@pacificlegal.org)