Week in Review: Freedom of Speech for All

December 22, 2018

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page featured an article by Goldwater Institute attorneys Jacob Huebert and Timothy Sandefur regarding the Institute’s latest effort to defend the freedom of speech:

Every American has a constitutional right not only to freedom of speech, but also to freedom of association, meaning that the government can’t force people to join groups they don’t want to join. Mandatory bar membership violates that right. Because bar associations wield massive political influence on everything from tort reform to judicial appointments, it distorts American democracy, too. 

You can read the full article here.

FDA’s Broken Bureaucracy Is Costing Lives

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration holds the incredible power of approving new prescription drugs before doctors can use them to treat patients. Though the government approval process was intended to protect patients, it has morphed into a broken bureaucratic nightmare that is costing lives, as Goldwater Institute national investigative journalist Mark Flatten explained in a radio interview this week.

Read more and watch the interview here.

Firefighters Paid to Politic?

Firefighters have one important job: fighting fires. But in Austin, Texas, taxpayers will spend nearly $1.25 million to pay these frontline first responders to do another job altogether – lobbying state and local government all for the benefit of a private union.

It’s a practice known as “release time,” and taxpayers in Austin, represented by the Goldwater Institute, are fighting to put a stop to it. Read the latest from Goldwater Institute director of national litigation Jon Riches.