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Several years ago, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg made headlines when he attempted to ban soft drinks over 16 ounces. After several years of legal challenges, New York City exhausted their appeals and people in the city were free to drink from a 17 ounce cup. 

Despite that setback, the nanny state is alive and well, particularly in large metropolitan cities and coastal states. But take heart, these rules and regulations are for your own good. At least that is what we often hear.  

Lawmakers are particularly concerned that you don’t know how to parent, especially when it comes to educating your child. While many states, Mississippi included, have parent-friendly homeschool laws, others make it a little more difficult to educate your own child in your own house.  

In Pennsylvania, you must meet educational qualifications to homeschool, file a notarized affidavit, which includes evidence of immunization and an outline of proposed objectives by subject area, meet the required number of days or hours of instruction, including the required subjects, maintain a portfolio, which includes work samples and standardized testing, and then have your child evaluated each year with a certification that must be submitted to the local school superintendent.  

Before children reach school age, we have seen parents seek out new options for preschool, including cooperatives. Here, parents volunteer in the classroom and help run the school, helping to lower the costs of a traditional preschool. Now that this is working well for families, Virginia is looking to require 30 hours of training for parents before they help with activities such as sweeping the floors and passing out snacks.  

After all, are those snacks healthy?

The government is here to help you decide

The city of Baltimore recently banned restaurants from including soft drinks or other sugary drinks on kids’ menus. Now, milk, 100 percent fruit juices, water, and flavored or sparkling water without added sweeteners are what the city of Baltimore will allow you to purchase. Not to be outdone, California is now interested in protecting your children from your bad parenting. A proposed law will require restaurants to serve only water or flavored milk to children, sorry fruit juices.  

But don’t ask for a straw with your milk or water when you are in California. Numerous municipalities have enacted bans, but Santa Barbara is taking the war on straws to the next level. In the coastal city, outlaws who use straws can be fined up to $1,000 and sent to prison for six months. To be fair, cutting down on waste in a good thing. But let’s not pat ourselves on the back for making up some statistics you received from a nine-year old and then passing laws that will do absolutely nothing for the environment.  

Just make sure that milk isn’t raw. Nineteen states, including Mississippi, ban the sale of raw milk, though Mississippi does allow the sale of raw goat milk. But California takes it a step further. They actually deploy “food confiscation teams” to raid the homes of people who purchased bootleg milk. And don’t think about calling nondairy milk, milk.

Regulating competition in the name of consumer protection

The Food and Drug Administration is considering regulatory action that will prohibit almond milk and soy milk from calling their products milk. All because you and I are unaware that Almond milk does not come from a cow. This move is being cheered by the dairy industry, which is looking to use political favor to stifle competition. Sound familiar?

This is what we have seen from the taxi industry in response to Uber and Lyft or the hotel industry in response to Airbnb. Incumbents seek protection from government when a disruptor enters their industry, rather than making changes in products or services in the free-market. They do this because the allocation of resources towards government has worked in far too many places – thus encouraging unnecessary and often silly rules and regulations. 

What is next?

And while we can’t have straws or sugary drinks, at least we still have balloons. For now. The anti-balloon movement appears ready to build on the anti-straw movement and do away with the common practice of releasing balloons. Even though, as the AP admitted, balloons are a “very small part of environmental pollution.” 

Thirty-two years ago President Ronald Reagan said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.” Over the years and decades, we have seen our government continue to grow, giving government regulators more power every day. And as we do that, we continue to lose just a little bit more of our freedoms and liberties.  

Be very cautious next time you hear a politician sell you on a promise that what he or she is doing is for your own good. 

This column appeared in the Clinton Courier on August 29, 2018. 

The Mississippi Ethics Commission has found that the mayor and the alderman in the city of Natchez violated Mississippi's Open Meetings Act when they entered into executive session to discuss proposals for garbage collection and recycling services.

The Mississippi Justice Institute, along with The Natchez Democrat and private citizens, filed complaints with the Ethics Commission. The ruling calls on the city and the mayor to comply with the Open Meetings Act. One of the core functions of MJI is to hold our government responsible to its citizens. Transparency is a requirement of governing by principle.

MJI's arguments have been affirmed, once again, by the Mississippi Ethics Commission.

Read the final order here.

The summer of 2018 may go down as the year the nanny state tried to kill the lemonade stand.

For generations, a summer tradition for boys and girls has been to make lemonade, set up a stand in front of their house or near a busy road, and earn money for that special toy they have been wanting, or maybe just to save for a future purchase. For a moment in time, children turn into entrepreneurs, even though they probably couldn’t tell you what the word means.

But lemonade stand entrepreneurs have met a force that strikes fear in the hearts of even the most seasoned professionals: the government regulator.

By now you have probably heard the stories, but they bear repeating because of the sheer lunacy of feeling the need to shut down a lemonade stand, and because they highlight the overcriminalization of our society thanks to laws we have adopted to fix every supposed issue or problem.

In California, the family a five-year-old girl received a letter from their city’s Finance Department saying that she needed a business license for her lemonade stand after a neighbor complained to the city. The girl received the letter four months after the sale, after she had already purchased a new bike with her lemonade stand money. The young girl wanted the bike to ride around her new neighborhood as her family had just moved.

In Colorado, three young boys, ages two to six, had their lemonade stand shut down by Denver police for operating without a proper permit. The boys were selling lemonade in hopes of raising money for Compassion International, an international child-advocacy ministry. But local vendors at a nearby festival didn’t like the competition and called the police to complain. When word of this interaction made news, the local Chick-Fil-A stepped up as you would expect from Chick-Fil-A. They allowed the boys to sell lemonade inside their restaurant, plus they donated 10 percent of their own lemonade profits that day to Compassion International.

In New York, the state Health Department shut down a lemonade stand run by a seven-year-old after vendors from a nearby county fair complained. Once again, they were threatened by a little boy undercutting their profits. A state senator in New York has since filed legislation to legalize lemonade stands. That is correct, we need new laws to clarify that a seven-year-old can run a lemonade stand with the government’s blessing.

For those who may read this and believe the world has gone crazy, we do have a story in Missouri that ended on a good note - though there is plenty of crazy in this story. An eight-year-old boy was being heckled by neighbors inquiring about his permit. If those potential customers got sick, they wanted to know “who we should go to.” The neighbors then proceeded to yell at the boy’s mom after the boy went inside. Fortunately for the boy, the local police department heard about the incident and came by the boy’s lemonade stand to show their support, and to provide their stamp of approval.

As parents and as a society, we should be encouraging entrepreneurship. We should celebrate young boys and girls who want to make money, whether it’s for a new bike or to give to a ministry. When children have the right heart and the right ideas and are willing to take actions, we shouldn’t discourage it. The lessons are valuable. They learn that money comes from work, that you have to plan, and then produce a stand, signs, and lemonade. Introducing kids to the concepts of marketing, costs, customer service, and the profit motive is a good thing.

And why it has always been celebrated in our society for a long time.

Until, at least in a few places, 2018. But I suppose these interactions also provide these young children with another valuable but unfortunate lesson: beware of government and crony capitalism. Vendors who don’t like competition use the law to eliminate competition. And government, however good the intentions may have been, created the laws that actually   work against the development of entrepreneurial values by regulating lemonade stands.

As often happens when government steps in to solve a problem, there are unintended consequences few are willing to acknowledge.

Hopefully, the absurdity of these stories has raised more than a few eyebrows. Perhaps they will cause people to recognize the downside of our regulatory burden and maybe even cause legislators to review more than a few of the laws, rules, and licensing regimes that are stifling growth, innovation, and capitalism. If we want a thriving and growing economy, we’ve got to have more entrepreneurs – including those future ones who sell lemonade in their neighborhoods today.

This column appeared in the Northside Sun on August 9, 2018. 

Supporters have begun the process of gathering signatures for a ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana in Mississippi. Here are five common sense reasons why liberty-minded conservatives (and everyone else) should support medical marijuana:

This year’s U.S. Supreme Court term is drawing to a close this week, and one thing is plain: this is the best Supreme Court—thanks to Justice Gorsuch and the general trend of the judiciary in the Trump Administration—that our country has had in my lifetime.

For proof, look no further than two cases handed down this week, NIFLA v. Becerra and Trump v. Hawaii.

The first case, NIFLA, was about whether California could require pro-life crisis pregnancy centers to post information about where patients could receive abortions. Forcing the centers to put up that information is forcing them to speak and therefore violating their First Amendment rights. California wanted to require people making pro-life statements to post abortion messages in up to 13 different languages. Even if you just wanted to put up a billboard saying “Choose Life,” you would also have to put up a poster with abortion-related messaging.

The Court found California had overstepped its authority.

Policies like California’s show how extreme the pro-choice movement has become. Thankfully, we have a Court that will protect our right to not be forced to say something we disagree with. You could see the same penchant for respecting speech in the Mansky case earlier this term, where the Court said Minnesota could not ban ideological statements, like “Don’t Tread on Me,” on clothes worn to the polling place.

In the second case, Trump v. Hawaii, the State of Hawaii challenged the Trump Administration's travel ban, which blocks some people from eight countries from coming into the U.S. The reason these eight countries were chosen is they refused to share information with our government to ensure that their travelers are not a threat. The countries are North Korea, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Chad, Iran, Yemen, and Venezuela.

Despite handwringing from the Left, the Court found that this policy was squarely within the powers of the President. The President has the power to ensure our country is safe, and even if some want to try to spin this policy as bigoted, the truth is that it mirrored policies from past administrations, like the Carter Administration, and was obviously constitutional.

The most encouraging takeaway from this term of the Court is that the Court clearly does not seem to mind making the hard decisions that would be unpopular in the media. Ruling for someone who opposes same-sex marriage, as the Court did in the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling, is an example doing the right thing even though a swath of big corporations and media coverage will be against you. Defending the Trump Administration’s right to have a reasonable immigration policy is another example. This Court cares about following the law and staying within its designated powers, regardless of what names they get called (or what restaurants they get kicked out of). That’s good for our country and good for the judiciary.

Which brings us to the definition of a “good” Supreme Court. A good court is one that does not bend to what is politically popular or even what the justices think the best policy outcome should be. A good court understands its role, follows the plain text of the law, and doesn’t bend the words of the constitution to fit some desired result.  Trump v. Hawaii provided an example of this approach. The Court knows that the law and constitution provide the President with broad authority in the areas of national security and immigration. It’s not for them to question decisions like the travel ban.

NIFLA and Trump v. Hawaii were close votes—both 5 to 4—so if we want more rulings like this, we need more backup for the five justices who stood for the rule of law. But while we wait for more appointment opportunities for this White House, let’s hope for more Supreme Court terms like this one in the meantime.

The latest development from Washington, D.C. includes a northern Virginia restaurant named the Red Hen and White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.

Shortly after Sanders arrived at the restaurant last week, co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson told her that they would not serve her and her party because they disagreed with her politics. Specifically, the owner was unhappy with the Trump administration’s refusal to have taxpayers pay for elective surgery and hormones for transgendered soldiers.

So Sanders and company left and only made note of it in a Tweet:

Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) June 23, 2018

The owner would then go on to defend her actions saying, “People have to make uncomfortable actions and decisions to uphold their morals.”

After the incident we then learned that the owner followed Sanders and her party to another restaurant to continue harassing her.

The difference between Red Hen and Masterpiece

The refusal by a business owner to serve a member of the Trump cabinet, and the celebration of this decision from the left, is oh-so ironic considering the reaction to a Supreme Court decision just a few weeks ago concerning a cake baker and who he would or wouldn’t make wedding cakes for.

The state of Colorado said Jack Phillips would have to make wedding cakes for anyone, regardless of his religious beliefs. Or face punishment for refusing. But in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Phillips in determining that “religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protected views.”

But there are two main differences between Masterpiece Cakeshop and The Red Hen.

Masterpiece served customers who were gay. Phillips would make a cake for any reason other than for their wedding. The equivalent would be if Sanders asked the restaurant to cook for a Trump campaign event. The restaurant should have the right to refuse to do that, because they disagree with the President’s political message. But the restaurant won’t serve Sanders simply because of who she is and her job. That’s the exact opposite of what Masterpiece did. Red Hen said we won’t serve Sanders under any circumstance. Phillips just said he wouldn’t serve someone under a certain condition.

And the Masterpiece decision also centered around the deeply held religious views of Phillips. The Supreme Court has time and again protected the religious freedoms of Americans, which are guaranteed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In the case of Red Hen, the refusal of service wasn’t related to anyone’s religious beliefs; rather purely to political differences.

The market always works

And Red Hen has plenty of encouragement, even from elected members of Congress. For example, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) recently said this: “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

But the truth is when it comes to Red Hen or Masterpiece, the market will sort itself out. Kicking someone out of a restaurant, particularly for no reason other than political differences, may be reprehensible. But for someone just outside of Washington D.C. surrounded by a sea of anti-Trump vitriol, it might not be a terrible business decision.

The same is true in the case of Jack Phillips. If his refusal to make a wedding cake for a gay wedding bothers you that much, and you don’t understand how someone could have religious beliefs that run counter to the endorsement of gay marriage, then don’t frequent his business. My guess is there are plenty of other options in Colorado.

Just like there are other options for restaurants in northern Virginia.

As Mississippi was passing legislation to protect individuals like Phillips from discrimination for their religious beliefs, restaurants and businesses in the Fondren and Belhaven areas of Jackson began putting up stickers on their front door or window that said something to the extent of “if you’re buying, we’re selling.”

Which, of course, any business is allowed to do, whether a state passes religious freedom laws or not. In fact, if a restaurant refused to serve someone simply because they were gay, odds are the media firestorm that that would create would cause real harm to the business.

Businesses should never be forced to promote a message that stands in opposition to their beliefs. Masterpiece shouldn’t be forced to make a cake for a gay wedding if they disagree with same-sex marriage, and Red Hen shouldn’t be forced to make a party tray for a pro-Trump rally if they disagree with Trump.

Mississippi is adding the words “In God We Trust” to its license plate, and that has sparked some interesting debate. Much of that debate focused on an idea we have come to accept as gospel: that we have an American tradition of separating religion and politics. We do not. We have been misinformed and misled by generations of public policy, education, and media leaders on the so-called “separation of church and state.” The concept has been so pervasive that we generally accept the idea that it is inappropriate to bring any faith-based ideas to the public square. The idea that we should separate religion — of any faith or denomination — from politics is not only false, it is virtually impossible.

The arguments in favor of this separation arise from Thomas Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, in which he used the phrase. However, that letter, and the metaphor, have been granted meaning that Jefferson never intended. With proper historical context and examination, it is clear that Jefferson, a major proponent of religious liberty, never envisioned anything like today’s interpretation. If anything, Jefferson’s metaphorical wall was meant to keep the state from violating the individual liberty of religious conscience. Washington and Lee University’s Sam Calhoun, Professor of Law and Associate Dean, put it this way: “[Jefferson’s] wall was meant to insulate religious belief and practices from legislative interference, not to separate religion from politics.”

In the 1947 case Everson vs. Board of Education, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote, “The establishment of religion clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion over another.” The late Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist agreed with Justice Black. Rehnquist believed the Establishment Clause was only meant to prevent the establishment of a national church and the state giving preference to one religious group over another. It was not intended to exclude faith-based ideas from political discourse.  In America, these ideas can be informed by any faith and any denomination, or by no faith at all. What we must reject is the Faustian idea that any public policy ideas that come from a faith-based perspective are invalid.

If we think about the public policy arguments that have made the biggest difference in improving our society and promoting individual liberty, freedom, and opportunity, we find religion and faith-based reasoning. Jefferson, Hamilton, Lincoln, Martin Luther King, and many others who opposed slavery made faith-based appeals on that issue. It is absurd to think that we should restrict our views of what is right and wrong to the private sphere only. In fact, we should question the motives of anyone who wants to dismiss another’s public policy ideas simply because those ideas are informed by a faith.

Yes, I’m a conservative. Well, actually, I’m a “conservatarian,” but more on that at a later date. Yes, I’m a Christian. No, I don’t want the government to endorse my ideas simply because some of them may be informed by faith. My argument is not that government should support a religion. In fact, it is the opposite. We need a more limited government. We need a government that is less intrusive in all matters. We should stop petitioning the government to solve most of our problems — including ones better solved by private institutions and free markets. The more we ask of government, the less freedom we have.

What I seek is government more in line with what Jefferson intended when he wrote about the wall of separation. He was intending to protect us from the state’s involvement in religion. He was not trying to prevent us from expressing religious views in public policy. In America, and in Mississippi, we must be open to diverse points of view, even to views with which we disagree. In that great tradition, we therefore must not dismiss views influenced by religion under the false notion that we are committed to a separation of church and state. We are not, at least not the way you think.

Jon L. Pritchett is president and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy, the state’s non-partisan, free-market think tank.

Victory for charter schools in Mississippi

Mississippi Justice Institute and other defendants protect constitutionality of charter schools according to trial court

 (JACKSON) – Hinds County Chancery Judge Dewayne Thomas ruled today in the lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of charters schools in Mississippi. Judge Thomas ruled in favor of the charter schools and their parents, and against the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Mississippi Justice Institute (MJI) Director Shadrack White, who represents the parents of charter school students, said, “This is a critical victory for the parents and their children who attend charter schools in Mississippi. Judge Thomas saw that the constitution does not trap my clients in their traditional public schools when public charter schools provide a better option. These parents know what’s best for their children.”

The charter lawsuit turned on whether the Mississippi Constitution allowed funding from state and local governments to be spent at charter schools. “Our case was simple,” said White. “My clients pay taxes, so they should have the right to take that money to a public charter school if that is a better option for their children. These schools are making their lives better. The plaintiffs in this case, however, had an extreme argument: that the funding for charter schools, agricultural schools, some alternative schools, and other types of non-traditional public schools should be barred.”

“As this case marches forward, I am going to continue thinking about all the good that charter schools have done for my clients, like Gladys Overton and her daughter Drew,” said White. “When we started this case, Gladys told us that, in her old school, Drew experienced nonstop bullying and a difficult classroom environment. Drew moved to ReImagine Prep, a charter school in Jackson, and today she is thriving. She was the most improved student in her class last year and, like every other student at ReImagine, is learning computer coding skills to prepare her for the workforce.”

“Students like Drew are who we fight for,” added White.

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Growing up in the Jackson “bubble,” I knew I wanted to try something new when it came time to attend college. I received a wonderful education at Jackson Academy, but my views were rarely challenged or debated. Attending the University of Alabama was a dream come true, and I looked forward to encountering diverse beliefs and thoughts at a top-tier school boasting more national merit finalists than any other public university. I vowed, though, that I would never lose my faith or convictions.

I vividly recall an honors college seminar taught by an outspokenly liberal professor who asked us to write about something controversial. We could cite any source but one — the Bible. We could cite the Quran, Mao’s Little Red Book or Dr. Seuss. Just not the Bible. In this professor’s opinion, the Bible was not even history; it was just fairy tales. I questioned such intolerance, arguing against my professor’s double standard. I was berated in front of the entire class. I learned then that my views were not tolerated or valued in this class. Unfortunately, mine is not an isolated case.

According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the University of Alabama has a speech code rating of “yellow.” This means the university has ambiguous protections for free speech. Here in Mississippi, Alcorn State and the University of Southern Mississippi have a yellow rating, whereas Ole Miss and Mississippi State University have a green rating, which indicates no serious threats to free speech. Jackson State and Delta State have red ratings, which means they have “at least one policy that both clearly and substantially restricts freedom of speech.”

Consider this “Student Life” regulation at Delta State: “Words, behavior, and/or actions which inflict mental or emotional distress on others and/or disrupt the educational environment at Delta State University are strictly prohibited.” Many things can cause “mental or emotional distress.” President Donald Trump’s election continues to be a source of great distress for some college students. Should Delta State ban students from displaying Trump bumper stickers or wearing Trump T-shirts? Will the school’s computer servers block internet sites that post pictures of Trump? A regulation prohibiting “mental or emotional distress” is too vague and could lead to administrative actions that violate students’ First Amendment rights.

While both public and private institutions should protect and encourage free speech, publicly funded universities are legally obligated to do so. The U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed this First Amendment right repeatedly: including for religious speech and activities (Widmar v. Vincent (1981)). Concluded the Court: “With respect to persons entitled to be there, our cases leave no doubt that the First Amendment rights of speech and association extend to the campuses of state universities.”

Many institutions have “vice presidents of diversity” who focus solely on that issue. We see diversity based on race, gender and sexual orientation, yet not so much on diversity of thought. Most university professors identify as liberal, and many go further left than that.

A 2016 Econ Journal Watch study that analyzed faculty voter registration records found that Democrats outnumbered Republicans 12 to 1 at 40 leading U.S. universities. Such bias wouldn’t be a problem if we were on a level playing field. But all too often professors and college administrators use their positions of authority and power to intimidate and silence students like me. Many conservatives feel afraid of voicing their opinions because of the political correctness that plagues our nation’s educational system.

In addition, conservative guest speakers often face unfriendly welcomes and threats. Even former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice backed out of a commencement address at Rutgers University after fierce opposition from students and faculty. In response, then-president Barack Obama condemned Rutgers’ intolerance. “If you disagree with somebody, bring them in and ask them tough questions,” chided the president. “Don't feel like you got to shut your ears off because you're too fragile and somebody might offend your sensibilities.”

Some on the left may have become hateful and violent, as we have seen from the Steve Scalise shooting and the Black Lives Matter protests, but we have to come together to protect free speech and free association. If we want a free nation that respects all beliefs, we must demand that students have the right to express themselves as protected by the First Amendment.

Daniel Ashford is a research associate at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy.

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