When the city of Phoenix censored its own citizens to appease the National Football League (NFL), the Goldwater Institute successfully fought back—and with America’s eyes trained on Phoenix for the biggest sporting event of the year, ESPN blared Goldwater’s Super Bowl victory to millions. The message from the Worldwide Leader in Sports’ bombshell story is clear: Goldwater just showed the nation how to stand up to big government and the multi-billion-dollar machine that is the NFL.
“The NFL has long exerted control over its jewel event,” ESPN reports. “But last Thursday…a Phoenix judge said the league, the host committee and its Super Bowl planning had crossed a line: Violating the U.S. Constitution.”
Like most Super Bowl host cities, Phoenix was all too eager to cater to the NFL’s long list of demands. But Goldwater sued the city for unconstitutionally forcing residents and business owners in the downtown “clean zone” to beg the NFL for permission to put up signs on their own property—and we won in court. Never before has a legal challenge to a Super Bowl clean zone gained traction, ESPN said—not until Goldwater took action. Now the NFL, and city governments across the country, know there’s a line: trampling citizens’ constitutional rights.
Read ESPN’s investigation here, and read more about our victory at In Defense of Liberty.
Maine mom Amber Lavigne is furious: A public school counselor secretly advised Amber’s 13-year-old daughter to change her gender and gave her a chest binder to flatten her breasts, then encouraged the child to hide it all from her parents. Now the Goldwater Institute is stepping in to hold Great Salt Bay Community School officials accountable for deliberately keeping her daughter’s “gender transition” a secret.
Goldwater is demanding the school board investigate the counselor’s actions and calling on the school to inform parents of any decision that affects their children’s wellbeing. After all, the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently held that it’s parents who have a fundamental right to control and direct the education, upbringing, and healthcare decisions of their children.
“I feel like my rights were violated and my daughter’s education was put on the back burner,” Amber told the Washington Times. “I feel like they overstepped and drove a wedge between my child and her family.”
Across the country, activist educators think they know better than parents. But Goldwater is fighting back to empower moms and dads to make decisions that best meet their children’s needs—and standing up for parents like Amber.
Read more at In Defense of Liberty.
Should fishermen be forced to pay the salaries of government-mandated observers to ensure that the fishermen comply with federal regulations? When an obscure federal agency tried to make them pony up, fishermen in New England sued—only for a federal appellate court to defer to the government and uphold the agency’s actions.
As Goldwater Institute Vice President for Litigation Jon Riches writes in National Review, judges regularly give regulators at all levels of government this sort of broad deference when those regulators make decisions that are later challenged in court. Considering the tremendous control state agencies exert over Americans’ everyday lives, state legislators should take action to stop such administrative tyranny.
Goldwater’s blueprint—a 2018 law the Institute passed to eliminate Arizona’s version of administrative deference—has already resulted in court decisions strengthening due process rights and the separation of powers. Georgia, Tennessee, and Florida have since followed suit, passing reforms to rein in deference by overwhelming margins. “As the reforms in Arizona and elsewhere show, state legislatures can and should lead the way to ensure that citizens affected by government regulations get a fair hearing in court, and that agencies are held accountable for the decisions they make,” Riches concludes.
Read more of Riches’ National Review article.
