Ride to Freedom
By Paul Jacob
How can you lose definitively and then win a resounding victory anyway?
Well, it helps if you’re Clint Bolick. Bolick wrote the book on how local governments often turn into freedom-killing leviathans. The book is called, in fact, Leviathan: The Growth of Local Government and the Erosion of Liberty.
Bolick is also a lawyer who co-founded the Institute for Justice, which has achieved many legal victories for individual rights around the country.
In an article for The Freeman magazine, Bolick tells the story of a cabbie named Leroy Jones, an immigrant from Africa. Jones and a few friends decided to leave the Yellow Cab company of Denver and start their own firm: Quick Pick Cabs.
But their competitors quickly picked a fight. Quick Pick Cabs had put together all the paperwork and insurance they needed. But they couldn’t get a taxicab license from the Public Utilities Commission, which bowed to the objections of Denver’s established taxicab companies. The Institute for Justice took the case to court on behalf of Quick Pick, but lost.
Then the Institute got a second hearing: from the court of public opinion. CBS’s “Eye on America” did a story on Leroy Jones, portraying him sympathetically as a man who simply wanted to pursue the American Dream by honest work. A man unfairly thwarted in that pursuit. As a result, Colorado deregulated entry into Denver’s taxicab market.
Bolick won. Leroy Jones won. We all won.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
