- Mountain States Legal Foundation
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Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF) is a nonprofit, public-interest law firm dedicated to individual liberty, the right to own and use property, limited and ethical government, and economic freedom. MSLF was incorporated in Colorado in 1977 by western business leaders concerned that advocates for constitutional liberties, property rights, and economic activity were not present during important legal battles.
MSLF is a nonprofit organization under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code; therefore, contributions to MSLF qualify for a charitable tax deduction. MSLF does not charge for its legal services on behalf of individuals, entities, trade associations, and units of local government, but instead provides representation to its clients pro bono in cases that involve important public policy issues that go beyond the interests of the parties in the litigation. In addition to its direct representation of MSLF, its members, and its clients, MSLF also files amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefs on its behalf. In its litigation, MSLF seeks to establish binding legal precedents that will benefit all Americans by preserving constitutional liberties and the rule of law.
MSLF is governed by a volunteer Board of Directors, which also approves all legal actions taken by MSLF, and assisted in the selection of its litigation by a volunteer Board of Litigation. MSLF employs a full time staff, which includes attorneys who conduct all of the litigation in which MSLF engages. The organization employs seven attorneys and reports its annual budget to be over $2 million.[1] William Perry Pendley is president and chief operating officer. Steven Lechner is vice president and chief legal officer. Janice Alvarado is vice president of administration. Attorneys include Pendley, Lechner, J. Scott Detamore, Joel Spector, and James Manley.[2][3]
MSLF owns its only office, its National Headquarters Lakewood, Colorado. MSLF educates the public regarding its litigation by way of its quarterly newsletter, The Litigator, a quarterly Action Update, which addresses topical legal issues, and its website at www.mountainstateslegal.org.
Since its creation, MSLF has appeared frequently before the Supreme Court of the United States and numerous federal courts of appeals. MSLF’s best known litigation involved the Constitution's equal protection guarantee, which resulted in a 1995 landmark ruling that Time Magazine called “a legal earthquake.” In Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, Justice Scalia wrote, “In the eyes of government, we are just one race here. It is American.”[4] MSLF has continued its litigation regarding affirmative action, reverse discrimination, and racial quotas and preferences, and also has litigated regarding the Voting Rights Act.
In addition, MSLF has litigated regarding property rights and has been preeminent regarding issues of concerns to westerners, including the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, especially regarding “wetlands,” the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the National Forest Management Act, the Antiquities Act, the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, and the General Mining Law and bars on and restrictions regarding the ability to develop natural resources such as energy and minerals and forest and agricultural products.
MSLF has drawn praise from President Ronald Reagan and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
Contents
Criticism
Greenpeace has criticized The Mountain States Legal Foundation as "training ground for a number of attorneys most active in the anti-environmental movement."[5]
References
- ^ http://www.charitynavigator.org
- ^ http://www.mountainstateslegal.org/staff.cfm
- ^ http://lawyers.law.cornell.edu
- ^ [1]515 U.S. 200, 239 (1995) (Scalia, concurring)
- ^ ExxonSecrets Factsheet: Mountain States Legal Foundation
Cases
Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña, 515 U.S. 200 (1995)[2]
United States v. Jenks, 129 F.3d 1348 (10th Cir. 1997)[3]
Mann v. United States, 86 Fed. Cl. 649 (2009)[4]
Dimitrov v. Norton, 479 F. Supp. 2d 1141 (D. Mont. 2007)
McFarland v. Kempthorne, 464 F. Supp. 2d 1014 (D. Mont. 2006), aff’d, 545 F.3d 1106 (9th Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S.Ct. 1582, 556 U.S. ___ (2009)
New Mexico v. Bureau of Land Management, 459 F. Supp. 2d 1102 (D.N.M. 2006), aff’d in part, vacated in part, rev’d in part, 565 F.3d 683 (10th Cir. 2009)
Shuler v. Babbitt, 49 F.Supp.2d 1165 (D. Mont. 1998)
Northwest Min. Ass’n v. Babbitt, 5 F.Supp.2d 9 (D.D.C. 1998)
Larson v. Lujan, 976 F.Supp. 1406 (D. Utah 1992)
Students for Concealed Carry on Campus v. Regents of the University of Colorado, 2010 WL 1492308 (Colo. Ct. App. 2010)[5]Bibliography
- William Perry Pendley, It Takes a Hero: The Grassroots Battle Against Environmental Oppression (Bellevue, WA: The Free Enterprise Press, 1994). ISBN 0-939571-16-1
- William Perry Pendley, War on the West: Government Tyranny on America's Great Frontier (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 1995). ISBN 0-89526-482-X
- William Perry Pendley, Warriors for the West: Fighting Bureaucrats, Radical Groups, and Liberal Judges on America’s Frontier (Regnery 2006). ISBN 1-59698-006-0
- “Life, Liberty, and Property Rights,” in Bringing Justice to the People: The Story of the Freedom-Based Public Interest Law Movement (Lee Edwards, ed.). Washington, DC: Heritage Books, ISBN 0-9743665-2-8.
External links
Categories:- Non-profit organizations based in the United States
- Organizations based in Colorado
- Organizations established in 1976
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