Press Release

PHOENIX – The Goldwater Institute has released its Legislative Report Card for 2010, which analyzes the votes of Arizona legislators on 411 bills.

For eight consecutive years, the Goldwater Institute has issued its Legislative Report Card as a tool to measure how individual state lawmakers vote on bills that limit or expand government. Every year, this report is the most comprehensive, independent assessment of state legislative activity.

PHOENIX – The Goldwater Institute filed today a formal appeal that asks the U.S. Supreme Court to permanently strike down the “matching funds” portion of Arizona’s taxpayer-funded campaign finance system. The Institute’s appeal in McComish v. Bennett will be litigated by lead attorneys Nick Dranias and Clint Bolick. The case has nationwide implications because similar systems in numerous states could be overturned if the Supreme Court grants the appeal.

PHOENIX – Student enrollment at America’s top universities has risen swiftly in the past 20 years, and tuition rates and taxpayer costs have jumped even higher. But the fastest growing portion of university budgets has been college administration offices, with Arizona State University ranking among the worst of 198 public and private schools reviewed, according to data provided to the federal government by the universities themselves.

PHOENIX – The Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit today to strike down the 2010 federal health care reforms as a fundamental attack on individual freedom and the rights guaranteed to all Americans by the U.S. Constitution.

PHOENIX – The Arizona Supreme Court ruled late Tuesday that Proposition 108 won’t be considered by Arizona voters during the November 2010 general election. The ballot measure sought to protect the right to vote by secret ballot in elections creating labor unions and during public elections.

Virginia will move forward with its lawsuit challenging federal health care reform after U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson rejected the Obama administration’s attempt to simply dismiss the case out of hand. The judge’s ruling today reinforces Arizona’s various efforts to protect individuals from government-mandated health insurance, according to the Goldwater Institute.

PHOENIX – Forty candidates running for state office in Arizona have promised their constituents that they will protect their individual rights. Incumbents and challengers from almost every county and legislative district also promised to vote only for budgets that are balanced and to reject policies that benefit just a handful of people or businesses.

PHOENIX - Today, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals barred the matching funds provisions of Connecticut's version of government funding for political candidates. The unanimous opinion mirrors the Goldwater Institute's arguments in a federal lawsuit that prompted the U.S. Supreme Court to block Arizona's matching funds provision on June 8, 2010.

PHOENIX - Arizona is still spending at near-record levels despite a $2.7 billion dollar budget deficit and an 18 percent state sales tax increase to help fix it. Today marks the start of Fiscal Year 2011 and, according to a spending clock sponsored by the Goldwater Institute and the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, Arizona is on track to spend $29.3 billion this year.

PHOENIX — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today the right to bear arms, which is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, also applies to states and local governments and not just federal jurisdictions such as Washington D.C. and national parks. The Goldwater Institute had urged the Court to take this step with a friend of the court brief filed in McDonald v. City of Chicago.