Phoenix’s Sky Harbor
Airport may soon be the first major airport without a ride-sharing service like
Uber or Lyft serving it, all because of an unconstitutional money grab by the
Phoenix City Council. But the city is already facing a backlash for its
blatantly illegal actions.
On Wednesday, the
Phoenix City Council voted 7-2 in favor of a 200% fee increase on ride-sharing
services to and from Sky Harbor Airport. Uber and Lyft had each notified the
city that if it went through with the plan, they would cease operations at the
airport beginning January 2020. That would end up hurting passengers, many of
them low-income.
Phoenix may soon be
held to account for its illegal actions. The City Council’s vote came after it
received notice from
the Goldwater Institute that such a fee increase would be in direct violation
of Arizona’s Constitution. Specifically, their actions fly in the face of Proposition
126, a measure overwhelmingly approved by voters last November that prohibits
any city from enacting any new fee or increasing any existing fee on services
performed in Arizona.
The Goldwater Institute
has been out front on this issue, explaining how the fee increase hurts drivers
and customers and violates the Arizona Constitution. Goldwater
Director of National Litigation Jon Riches testified against the plan at
Wednesday’s City Council meeting. “Make no mistake: If you pass this
proposal, you will not only be putting in place one of the worst, most
punishing, policies the city has considered. You will be behaving illegally,”
reads his prepared statement. “You will have to explain to your
constituents—most of them low- and middle-income—why you want to harm them for
getting a ride to the airport. And why you did so in blatant disregard of the
Constitution.”
On Thursday, state
Representative Nancy Barto filed
a complaint against the city with the Arizona Attorney General, who will now
launch an investigation into the constitutionality of the fee increase.
Following the City Council’s vote, the future of Uber and Lyft at Sky Harbor is definitely up in the air—and that’s terrible news for the tens of thousands of passengers who make use of them to get to and from the airport. Stay tuned.
Click here to watch Goldwater Institute Director of National Litigation Jon Riches’ testimony to the Phoenix City Council.
Sen. Warren Was Right: Educational Freedom Helps All Students
[T]he term ‘voucher’
has become a dirty word in many educational circles…. The fear is that
partial-subsidy vouchers provide a boost so that better-off parents can opt out
of a failing public school system, while the other children are left behind…
[But] a taxpayer-funded voucher that paid the entire cost of educating a child
(not just a partial subsidy) would open a range of opportunities to all
children.”
Were these the words of
a pro-school choice group, or maybe an ardent right-winger? Hardly. They came
from an unlikely source—none other than now-Senator Elizabeth Warren.
The recently unearthed 2004 policy prescriptions of the Democratic presidential candidate reveal that Sen. Warren had envisioned an education system in which “parents would take control over schools’ tax dollars.” Goldwater Institute Director of Education Policy Matt Beienburg writes in RealClearPolicy that the educational freedom Sen. Warren once supported would be a boon to all students.
You can read Beienburg’s full op-ed here.
Right to Try is the Most Fundamental Right of All
Goldwater Institute
Executive Vice President Christina Sandefur recently joined the Cato
Institute’s The Pursuit podcast
to talk about the most fundamental right of all—the right to try to save your own life.
“Despite the importance
of the issue, medical autonomy—the right to make one’s own medical decisions—has
been increasingly undermined by the federal government,” Sandefur
writes on In Defense of Liberty. “The cruel reality is that in the United
States, thousands of people every year suffer and die while treatments like
these make their way through the slow, bureaucratic federal system—which can
take 15 years before potentially lifesaving treatments get approval from the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).” Right to Try helps patients gain
access to investigational treatments without having to ask the FDA for
permission.
You can
listen to the full podcast here.
