Politics
Builders may fight 'impact fees' that fund municipal projects in California, Supreme Court rules
The Supreme Court ruled Friday that developers and home builders in California may challenge the fees commonly imposed by cities and counties to pay for new roads, schools, sewers and other public improvements.
The justices said these “impact fees” may be unconstitutional if builders and developers are forced to pay an unfair share of the cost of public projects.
Developers have contended that limiting California’s high fees would lead to the construction of more affordable new housing.
California state courts had blocked claims arising from “a development impact fee imposed pursuant to a legislatively authorized fee program” for new development in a city or county.
But the 9-0 Supreme Court decision opened the door for such challenges. The justices revived a constitutional claim brought by an El Dorado County man who put a manufactured home on a small lot and was told he would have to pay a “traffic mitigation fee” of $23,420.
The decision could have wide impact in California, since local governments have increasingly relied on impact fees rather than property taxes to pay for new projects.
But the justices did not spell out when such fees become unfair and unconstitutional.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson said they joined the majority opinion in Sheetz vs. El Dorado County because it merely allows such challenges.
In a separate opinion, conservative Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said he saw merit to the “common government practice of imposing permit conditions, such as impact fees, on new development through reasonable formulas or schedules that assess the impact of classes of development rather than the impact of specific parcels of property.”
State and county attorneys had made just that argument. They said it was fairer to impose a development fee on all the lots in an area.
But the justices nonetheless ruled that homeowners and developers may sue to challenge these fees as an unconstitutional taking of their private property. The case will now go back to the California courts.
The Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento hailed the ruling as a significant victory for property rights.
“Holding building permits hostage in exchange for excessive development fees is obviously extortion,” said attorney Paul Beard, who represented the El Dorado County homeowner. “We are thrilled that the court agreed and put a stop to a blatant attempt to skirt the 5th Amendment’s prohibition against taking private property without just compensation.”
Beard said El Dorado County “failed to show — and cannot show — that the fee is sufficiently related and proportionate to the traffic impacts” of his client’s “modest home.”
The debate over development fees is especially relevant in California, where local governments have increasingly relied on the charges to finance parks, streets, schools and other infrastructure and services since the 1978 passage of Proposition 13 limited property tax revenues.
The fees have come under scrutiny in other cases as developers and others have blamed them for driving up the cost of housing and for a wide disparity in cities’ fees.
A 2018 study by UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation found that, depending on the city, fees for new single-family homes could range from $21,000 to $157,000, and could account for 6% to 18% of the median home price.
For decades, the Supreme Court has cast a skeptical eye at California’s regulation of private property. In a pair of decisions, it limited the power of government officials to demand concessions from a property owner in exchange for a building permit.
In 1987, justices ruled for the owner of a beach bungalow in Ventura who was told he could not obtain a permit to expand his home unless he agreed to allow the public access to the beachfront. The conservative majority at the time described this demand as akin to “extortion” and said it violated the 5th Amendment’s clause that forbids the taking of “private property … for public use without just compensation.”
In a follow-up decision involving a store owner who was forced to allow a bike path on her property, the court said the government may not impose such special conditions on property owners unless it can show an owner’s new development would cause direct harm to the community.
But since then, it has been unclear whether this property right applies to development fees or in situations where fees are set by legislation rather than imposed on a single owner seeking a permit.
Writing for the court in Friday’s ruling, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that “there is no basis for affording property rights less protection in the hands of legislators than administrators. The Takings Clause applies equally to both — which means that it prohibits legislatures and agencies alike from imposing unconstitutional conditions on land-use permits.”
The case arose when property owner George Sheetz sought a permit to put a manufactured home on a lot he owned in Placerville, outside Sacramento. El Dorado County required him to pay a “traffic impact mitigation” fee to obtain the permit. Some of the money was to go toward upgrades to Highway 50, which runs through the area, but most was to go toward new or expanded roads in the county.
Sheetz paid the fee and obtained his permit, then sued to challenge the fee as unconstitutional. He argued that the taxpayers of the county, not the new owner of a small home, should be required to pay for road building.
The justices agreed to hear his appeal after he lost in the California courts.
State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who has supported legislation to rein in developer fees, said he didn’t expect Friday’s decision by itself to have a significant effect on the debate in Sacramento because it only called out one extreme situation.
“Ultimately, the solution is the same today as it was yesterday,” Wiener said. “The California Legislature needs to put in place an actual structure for impact fees. Right now, it’s all over the map.”
Wiener said he sympathizes with local governments that turn to the fees because it’s easier than raising revenue through broad-based taxes — but he said some cities use sky-high fees to block housing development.
“There is something a little odd about effectively taxing new housing to pay for societal needs that should be paid generally by taxpayers — by the entire community,” he said.
Graham Knaus, executive director of the California State Assn. of Counties, said in a statement Friday that the organization was still reviewing the ruling to understand its implications.
But he said that “limiting the ability to legislatively enact fees will negatively impact the ability of our 58 counties to protect the health and welfare of their communities and drastically limit the building of vital local infrastructure.”
“In many cases,” Knaus said, “these fees are the only tool available to pay for new infrastructure around certain development projects.”
Times staff writer Liam Dillon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Politics
Nearly 20 states sue HHS over declaration to restrict gender transition treatment for minors
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A group of 19 Democrat-led states and Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over a declaration that aims to restrict gender transition treatment for minors.
The lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and its inspector general comes after the declaration issued last week described treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone therapy and gender surgeries as unsafe and ineffective for children experiencing gender dysphoria.
The declaration also warned doctors they could be excluded from federal health programs, including Medicare and Medicaid, if they provide these treatments to minors.
The move seeks to build on President Donald Trump’s executive order in January calling on HHS to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.”
HHS UNLEASHES SWEEPING CRACKDOWN ON CHILD ‘SEX-REJECTING PROCEDURES,’ THREATENS HOSPITAL, MEDICAID FUNDING
The lawsuit was filed against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; and its inspector general. (Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters)
“We are taking six decisive actions guided by gold standard science and the week one executive order from President Trump to protect children from chemical and surgical mutilation,” Kennedy said during a press conference last week.
HHS has also proposed new rules designed to further block gender transition treatment for minors, although the lawsuit does not address the rules, which have yet to be finalized.
The states’ lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Eugene, Oregon, argues that the declaration is inaccurate and unlawful and urges the court to prevent it from being enforced.
“Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement.
The lawsuit claims the declaration attempts to pressure providers into ending gender transition treatment for young people and circumvent legal requirements for policy changes. The complaint said federal law requires the public be given notice and an opportunity to comment before substantively amending health policy and that neither of these were done before the declaration was released.
HHS’ move seeks to build on President Donald Trump’s executive order in January calling on HHS to protect children from “chemical and surgical mutilation.” (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The declaration based its conclusions on a peer-reviewed report that the department conducted earlier this year that called for more reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender transition treatment for minors with gender dysphoria.
The report raised questions about standards for the treatment of transgender children issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and brought concerns that youths may be too young to give consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility.
Major medical groups and physicians who treat transgender children have criticized the report as inaccurate.
HHS also announced last week two proposed federal rules — one to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that offer gender transition treatment to children and another to block federal Medicaid money from being used for these procedures.
HOUSE APPROVES MTG-SPONSORED BILL TO CRIMINALIZE GENDER TRANSITION TREATMENT FOR MINORS
New York Attorney General Letitia James led the lawsuit against the Trump administration. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
The proposals have not yet been made final and are not legally binding because they must go through a lengthy rulemaking process and public comment before they can be enforced.
Several major medical providers have already pulled back on gender transition treatment for youths since Trump returned to office, even those in Democrat-led states where the procedures are legal under state law.
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Medicaid programs in just under half of states currently cover gender transition treatment. At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the treatment, and the Supreme Court’s decision this year upholding Tennessee’s ban likely means other state laws will remain in place.
Democrat attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington state and Washington, D.C., as well as Pennsylvania’s Democrat governor, joined James in the lawsuit.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Tips provided to federal investigators about Donald Trump’s alleged involvement in Jeffrey Epstein’s schemes with young women and girls are “sensationalist” and “untrue,” the Justice Department said on Tuesday, after a new tranche of files released from the probe featured multiple references to the president.
The documents include a limousine driver reportedly overhearing Trump discussing a man named Jeffrey “abusing” a girl, and an alleged victim accusing Trump and Epstein of rape. It is unclear whether the FBI followed up on the tips. The alleged rape victim died from a gunshot wound to the head after reporting the incident.
Nowhere in the newly released files do federal law enforcement agents or prosecutors indicate that Trump was suspected of wrongdoing, or that Trump — whose friendship with Epstein lasted through the mid-2000s — was investigated himself.
But one unidentified federal prosecutor noted in a 2020 email that Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet “many more times than previously has been reported,” including over a time period when Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s top confidante who would ultimately be convicted on five federal counts of sex trafficking and abuse, was being investigated for criminal activity.
The Justice Department released an unusual statement unequivocally defending the president.
“Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump that were submitted to the FBI right before the 2020 election,” the Justice Department statement read. “To be clear: the claims are unfounded and false, and if they had a shred of credibility, they certainly would have been weaponized against President Trump already.”
“Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims,” the department added.
The Justice Department files were released with heavy redactions after bipartisan lawmakers in Congress passed a new law compelling it to do so, despite Trump lobbying Republicans aggressively over the summer and fall to oppose the bill. The president ultimately signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act into law after the legislation passed with veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
One newly released file containing a letter purportedly from Epstein — a notorious child sex offender who died in jail while awaiting federal trial on sex-trafficking charges — drew widespread attention online, but was held up by the Justice Department as an example of faulty or misleading information contained in the files.
The letter appeared to be sent by Epstein to Larry Nassar, another convicted sex offender, shortly before Epstein’s death. The letter’s author suggested that Nassar would learn after receiving the note that Epstein had “taken the ‘short route’ home,” possibly referring to his suicide. It was postmarked from Virginia on Aug. 13, 2019, despite Epstein’s death in a Manhattan jail three days prior.
“Our president shares our love of young, nubile girls,” the letter reads. “When a young beauty walked by he loved to ‘grab snatch,’ whereas we ended up snatching grub in the mess halls of the system. Life is unfair.”
The Justice Department said that the FBI had confirmed that the letter is “FAKE” after it made the rounds on Tuesday.
“This fake letter serves as a reminder that just because a document is released by the Department of Justice does not make the allegations or claims within the document factual,” the department posted on social media. “Nevertheless, the DOJ will continue to release all material required by law.”
The department has faced bipartisan scrutiny since failing to release all of the Epstein files in its possession by Dec. 19, the legal deadline for it to do so, and for redacting material on the vast majority of the documents.
Justice Department officials said they were following the law by protecting victims with the redactions. The Epstein Files Transparency Act also directs the department not to redact images or references to prominent or political figures, and to provide an explanation for each and every redaction in writing.
The latest release, just days before the Christmas holiday, includes roughly 30,000 documents, the department said. Hundreds of thousands more are expected to be released in the coming weeks.
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released a statement in response to the Tuesday release accusing the Justice Department of a “cover-up,” writing on social media, “the new DOJ documents raise serious questions about the relationship between Epstein and Donald Trump.”
Documents from Epstein’s private estate released by the oversight committee earlier this fall had already cast a spotlight on that relationship, revealing Epstein had written in emails to associates that Trump “knew about the girls.”
The latest documents release also includes an email from an individual identified as “A,” claiming to stay at Balmoral Castle, a royal residence in Scotland, asking Maxwell if she had found him “some new inappropriate friends.” Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, has come under intense scrutiny over his ties to Epstein in recent years.
Speaking at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Monday, Trump said the continuing Epstein scandal amounts to a “distraction” from Republican successes, and expressed disapproval over the release of images in the files that reveal associates of Epstein.
“I believe they gave over 100,000 pages of documents, and there’s tremendous backlash,” Trump told reporters. “It’s an interesting question, because a lot of people are very angry that pictures are being released of other people that really had nothing to do with Epstein. But they’re in a picture with him because he was at a party, and you ruin a reputation of somebody. So a lot of people are very angry that this continues.”
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White nationalist Nick Fuentes vowed to campaign against Vivek Ramaswamy in a slur-laced rant denouncing the Republican’s Ohio governor bid.
The declaration came just days after Ramaswamy called out Fuentes during a speech at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference in which he criticized Fuentes over some of his inflammatory remarks.
“I think I’m going to go to Ohio and the word that we are looking for is denial. We have to deny Vivek Ramaswamy the governorship. This is the only race I care about in ‘26. It’s the only one I care about,” Fuentes said during a Tuesday livestream. He also used a slur to describe Ramaswamy and said he does not care if a Democrat defeats him in the governor’s race.
When asked by Fox News Digital for a response, a spokesperson for Ramaswamy’s campaign said on Wednesday, “We’re focused on the issues that matter most to Ohioans, not fringe voices that prefer a far-left Democrat to the Trump-endorsed conservative.”
VIVEK RAMASWAMY TURNS TO CONSERVATIVE YOUTH TO SHAPE THE MOVEMENT’S NEXT PHASE, ANALYZES 2026 RACES
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. At right is White nationalist Nick Fuentes outside a Turning Point event on June 15, 2024, in Detroit. (Cheney Orr/Reuters; Dominic Gwinn/Getty Images)
Ramaswamy laid out his vision for what it means to be an American during remarks Friday at AmericaFest.
“What does it mean to be an American in the year 2026? It means we believe in those ideals of 1776,” he said at the Turning Point USA event. “It means we believe in merit, that the best person gets the job regardless of their skin color.”
“It means we believe in free speech and open debate,” he added. “Even for those who disagree with us, from Nick Fuentes to Jimmy Kimmel, you get to speak your mind in the open without the government censoring you.”
RAMASWAMY REVEALS MAIN LESSON LEARNED BY REPUBLICANS AFTER DEMOCRATS’ BIG WINS ON ELECTION DAY
Vivek Ramaswamy speaks during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2025, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025, in Phoenix. (Jon Cherry/AP)
Ramaswamy then said, “If you believe in normalizing hatred toward any ethnic group, toward Whites, toward Blacks, toward Hispanics, toward Jews, toward Indians, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement, period.”
“And I will not apologize for that. I will not hedge when I say it,” Ramaswamy continued. “If you believe, and you will forgive me for giving you an exact quote from our online commentator, Nick Fuentes. If you believe that Hitler was pretty f—— cool, you have no place in the future of the conservative movement. You can debate foreign aid, Israel all you want. That’s fine. That’s fair. But you have no place with that level of hatred.”
Ramaswamy declared his candidacy for the Ohio governorship in late February.
Ramaswamy is running to replace Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, shown here in the Old Senate Chamber in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 21, 2025. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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Current Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who is also a Republican, is term-limited and will be departing office in January 2027.
Fox News Digital’s David Rutz contributed to this report.
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