Nick Dranias

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Director, Center for Constitutional Government
Goldwater Institute

Nick Dranias holds the Clarence J. and Katherine P. Duncan Chair for Constitutional Government and is Director of the Joseph and Dorothy Donnelly Moller Center for Constitutional Government at the Goldwater Institute.

Prior to joining the Goldwater Institute, Dranias was an attorney with the Institute for Justice. In law school, Dranias served on the Loyola University Chicago Law Review, competed on Loyola’s National Labor Law Moot Court Team, and received various academic awards. He graduated cum laude from Boston University with a B.A. in Economics and Philosophy.

Dranias has authored numerous articles, including Past the Pall of Orthodoxy, which challenges bar admission restrictions limiting the practice of law to graduates of ABA-accredited law schools, and Consideration as Contract, was published in the Spring 2008 edition of the Texas Review of Law and Politics. He is also the author of The Land Of 10,000 Lakes Drowns Entrepreneurs In Regulations, a study that shows how regulations block the path to the American Dream, and how those barriers can be removed. His first Goldwater Institute work, A New Charter for American Cities: 10 Rights to Restrain Government and Protect Freedom, argues that applying principles of limited government to cities, counties and towns is not only the right thing to do, but a practical necessity. And his latest work, 50 Bright Stars: An Assessment of Each State’s Constitutional Commitment to Limited Government, reveals that 48 out of 50 states offer a stronger guarantee of limited government under their state constitutions than does the federal government under the U.S. Constitution.

Selected Works

Report Card

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Read the 2009 Legislative Report Card here

Spending Watch

How fast does the Arizona state government spend your money? $920 per second.

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