Week in Review: Straight Out of George Orwell

For over a year in Gilbert, Ariz., the “Gilbert Goons” street gang went on a violent rampage that destroyed lives—all while government officials turned a blind eye.

Turns out Gilbert’s government has been preoccupied with an entirely different agenda: tracking what government officials and employees say online so they can push progressive politics on citizens—and the Goldwater Institute just exposed this agenda for all to see.

As a just-released investigative report reveals, the Gilbert “Office of Digital Government”—an entire department of town employees earning more than $1 million a year—is straight out of a George Orwell novel. The town agency doesn’t just control all government communications online. It spends untold hours hunting down employees’ personal social media for views that deviate from the script of political correctness and then turns those employees in. For instance, the agency champions causes like Black Lives Matter, while suppressing viewpoints defending first responders.

Across the country, progressives are weaponizing government to force “diversity, equity, and inclusion” on Americans. But Gilbert’s Office of Digital Government takes things even further: it’s an arrangement unlike any other we’ve seen in the nation. And it’s got to go.

Read the investigative report here.

Will SCOTUS Help Americans Take Back Our Cities?

The U.S. Supreme Court just took a major step toward righting the ship on the nationwide homelessness crisis—and national media outlets are relying on Goldwater’s expertise to tell the world about it.

The high court announced last week it will review a federal appeals court ruling that liberal leaders—especially in Phoenix—have erroneously blamed for their inaction on homelessness. “The Ninth Circuit’s decision is based on the demeaning notion that people who choose to live in public parks and on sidewalks ‘can’t help it’ — a nonsense idea that hurts both the homeless and the hardworking taxpayers who must suffer” as a result, Goldwater Vice President for Legal Affairs Timothy Sandefur told National Review. (Goldwater filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to overturn that ruling.) The consequence: an “explosion of homeless encampments in cities across the country,” Sandefur added on NewsNation.

An Arizona judge already sided with the Goldwater Institute in ruling earlier this year that Phoenix leaders must clean up a massive open-air homeless encampment called “The Zone.” Now the Supreme Court should take action as well. “We look forward to the Supreme Court fixing this judge-created mess,” Sandefur said.

Read the National Review article here, and watch the NewsNation interview here.

 Breaking Through Barriers

 Imagine dedicating years of your life to mastering your profession—only to move to a new state and find your qualifications unrecognized. That’s exactly what happened to Dr. Carol Gandolfo, an experienced psychologist who moved from California to Arizona—only for Arizona bureaucrats to refuse to let her practice.

Goldwater Institute attorneys helped Dr. Gandolfo fight back and win. And in a new Atlas Network video and article, she offers a personal account of her journey overcoming corruption to serve first responders and many others in her community—a pivotal moment in Goldwater’s nation-leading work to safeguard the right to earn a living.

Dr. Gandolfo’s plight was far from unique. In fact, dozens of states force new arrivals to go through the costly, time-intensive process of obtaining a new occupational license before they can get to work—no matter their existing license or qualifications.

That’s why the Goldwater Institute created a game-changing law called universal recognition of occupational licenses. It’s helped 8,000 qualified professionals in Arizona get to work after moving to the Grand Canyon State, and countless more in the dozens of additional states where we’ve enacted this revolutionary reform. Their success stories represent the real-life impact of a common-sense law on families, careers, and communities.

Read more here.