The stakes could not have been higher. Out-of-state special interests were spending millions of dollars in an attempt to defeat Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program, which provides education opportunity to 100,000 students in the state. But thanks to the Goldwater Institute and its allies, the nefarious anti-school choice campaign went down in flames this week.
The teachers’ unions and their allies were never straight with voters—they lied about Arizona’s ESAs, they lied about their measure aimed at gutting the landmark school choice program, and they lied about the signatures they gathered to get their measure on November’s ballot. Goldwater wasn’t having it. This week, the Arizona Supreme Court agreed, ruling that more than 175,000 signatures the unions submitted were invalid—giving their Proposition 212 the boot.
Proponents of Prop 212 needed 256,000 valid signatures to qualify their anti-school choice measure for the ballot; they turned in 421,000. But as Goldwater pointed out in court, there were problems—lots of problems: bogus signatures, duplicates, missing information. One circulator’s sheets were invalidated when it was proven that he deliberately deceived voters. Most shocking of all, the union activists who poured millions of dollars into their effort enlisted dangerous criminals—including a convicted child sex offender, a human trafficker, and other violent offenders—to collect signatures from voters.
The truth is, Arizona’s universal school choice program has been an overwhelming success by empowering parents to make the best educational choices for their kids. Sadly, the teachers’ unions see that as a threat and they’ll stop at nothing to claw back power from parents, even if that means lying and teaming up with violent criminals.
Thankfully, the Goldwater Institute will always be there to empower families and stand up for education freedom in Arizona and around the nation.
Read more here.
Every American has the right to invite guests into their home and offer them a bite to eat. But for some reason, local health bureaucrats in Missouri say Kathy Kite needs their permission to have people over for breakfast. That’s wrong, and now the Goldwater Institute is standing up for Kathy’s constitutional right to show her neighbors hospitality.
When the local gas station in Harrisburg, Mo., stopped serving breakfast, there was nowhere for locals in the small town to go to grab a morning meal and talk. So, Kathy invited everyone to her house and offered to cook breakfast—free of charge. But when the Boone County health bureaucrats caught wind of this bit of all-American hospitality, they didn’t commend Kathy. They threatened her with legal action if she didn’t get a food-service permit and spend tens of thousands of dollars she can’t afford on a commercial kitchen.
Of course, Kathy isn’t running a commercial restaurant—she’s just a grandma who cooks breakfast for her neighbors. That’s why the Goldwater Institute is demanding answers and will continue to defend the right of Americans like Kathy to be free of unnecessary government intrusions in their homes.
Read more here.
Affordability is at the center of America’s biggest challenges in 2026. But the affordability crisis isn’t random. Prices, incentives, and policy all play a role.
The Foundation for Economic Education is meeting the moment with the Affordability Contest: an initiative to help people understand the economic forces driving rising costs, with a $1 million prize for testing their knowledge. Take a look: milliondollarquestion.org
