Liberty In Action Weekly: Government Permission Slip Not Required

The law couldn’t be more clearly established: neither the news media nor individual Americans need the government’s permission to speak or to publish information they’ve legally obtained. That’s why the Goldwater Institute is urging a New Jersey court to overturn a horrendous ruling that requires a local newspaper to obtain the government’s permission to publish a video that exposes the government’s own efforts to deceive the public.

The case involves the New Brunswick school district, which wasn’t straight with parents about an incident involving a student with a gun at school—the district falsely claimed the resulting school lockdown was just a “drill.”  But when New Brunswick Today published a leaked but legally obtained surveillance video exposing the truth, school leaders sued and persuaded a judge to order the paper to take the video down. The judge later modified his order, allowing the paper to repost the video exposing the district’s deception—but only if the district’s leaders gave the paper permission.

In a friend of the court brief, Goldwater explains that the judge’s order is an unconstitutional “prior restraint” and a clear violation of the basic principles of free speech. This is just the latest in a disturbing trend of public school officials taking aim at free speech rights—a trend the Goldwater Institute will continue to fight in New Jersey and across the nation.

Read more here.

Bureaucrats Don’t Get to Make Laws About Eggs—Or Anything Else

Should Arizonans be limited to purchasing eggs that come from cage-free hens? Reasonable people can disagree on the policy question. But as Goldwater Institute Vice President for Litigation Jon Riches writes in a new op-ed, there should be no debate that it is the job of the Legislature—not unelected bureaucrats—to make that decision.

Goldwater attorneys just appeared before the Maricopa County Superior Court to argue that the Arizona Department of Agriculture never had the authority to pass a rule requiring virtually all eggs sold in the state to come from cage-free hens. Writing in Arizona Talks, Riches says the state constitution and Arizona law make it clear that “the Legislature makes the law,” while it’s the job of executive agencies to enforce it. Those agencies “do not get to decide for themselves what the law ought to be,” Riches writes, adding that this division of power “is a basic protection for individual liberty.”

Under a constitutional system, disagreements over policies—including policies over eggs—should be resolved through the democratic process, with new laws voted on by legislators who are answerable to the people. The Goldwater Institute will continue to stand up for a division of government powers and against the overreach of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.

Read more here.

What the Founders Really Thought About Slavery

What did the founding fathers really think about slavery? And did the Constitution lay the groundwork for its abolition? Those are two all-important questions the Goldwater Institute’s Timothy Sandefur tackles in a new Federalist Society panel discussion.

Sandefur, Goldwater’s vice president for legal affairs and the author of Proclaiming Liberty: John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration of Independence, argues that the Constitution was written so that—in Abraham Lincoln’s words—the public mind could rest in the belief that slavery was “in the course of ultimate extinction.”

“Most strikingly,” Sandefur says, “the Constitution made no explicit reference to slavery at all, let alone providing it with any permanent guarantees. Instead, it left the question of slavery open to political resolution, and at the time the Constitution was written political leaders had good reason to believe that slavery was dying under its own economic inefficiency.”

The conversation will be of great interest to history buffs and anyone with an appreciation of American history.

You can purchase the book “Proclaiming Liberty” here.