Week in Review: No More Lawless Streets?

Violent criminals roaming the streets unchecked. Rampant public drug use. Countless lives and livelihoods destroyed.

As Texas grapples with a devastating homelessness crisis, local officials are refusing to enforce the law, leaving property and business owners to pay the price for a crisis that they didn’t create. But the Goldwater Institute is stepping in to hold lawless local governments in Texas accountable. Goldwater’s Safe Neighborhoods Act allows property owners suffering from government’s inaction on homelessness to claim a refund for diminished property value and for mitigation expenses like installing fences and hiring security.

Goldwater passed a similar law in Arizona last year, and it’s already forcing cities to finally change their tune on the homeless crisis. Texas should similarly prioritize the rule of law over soft-on-crime policies that lead to lawlessness.

Read more here. 

Freedom in Action 

Over 100 laws in 29 states—and we’re less than three months into 2025.

The Goldwater Institute is continuing to enact more innovative, pro-freedom reforms than any organization in the country. In 2025 alone, we have introduced 122 laws in 29 states, including reforms to:

• Expand the Right to Try so patients with rare diseases don’t have to beg the government for permission to access innovative, personalized treatments (15 states);
• Dismantle discriminatory “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) bureaucracies in higher education (8 states);
• Prohibit public universities from requiring DEI courses to graduate (7 states);
• Protect parents’ right to find out what’s going on in their kids’ classroom (7 states).

We don’t sit just around writing white papers. We’re working every day to improve lives, change lives, and save lives by freeing Americans from the restraints of government—and we’re just getting started.

Goldwater Takes ‘Garbage Bureaucrats’ to Arkansas Supreme Court

Steven Hedrick ran a thriving small business that filled a void in rural Arkansas—until the government got in the way. “The city has prohibited me from doing business,” Steven says.

Now Goldwater is going to the Arkansas Supreme Court to defend Steven’s rights—the seventh time Goldwater attorneys will argue before a state supreme court.

Steven rents dumpsters to customers working on large projects, then picks up the trash when they’re done. However, the city of Holiday Island has banned anyone from picking up solid waste, except for a specially chosen government entity.

But the Goldwater Institute is safeguarding Americans’ right to earn a living around the nation, fighting bureaucratic overreach and passing laws to defend this fundamental right. As Steven says, “You shouldn’t have to ask permission to put food on your table.”

Read more here.