Week in Review: The End of Rule-By-Bureaucrat?

No more rule-by-Administrative State in Kentucky.

In a major win for individual liberty and separation of powers, Goldwater has enacted our landmark judicial deference reform in the Bluegrass State—just the latest of many states where we’ve ended automatic deference to government agencies’ interpretations of laws and their own regulations.

Imagine that bureaucrats on a regulatory board refuse to approve a barber’s permit to cut hair. Because of deference, that barber would have no legal recourse—no matter how qualified he is or how many customers want the services he provides. Indeed, the Administrative State’s army of bureaucrats have long controlled nearly every aspect of American life. But Goldwater is showing the nation how to fight back and win—because we’re dedicated to defending Americans’ freedom from unelected bureaucrats.

Read more here.

DEI Goes Down in Kentucky, Michigan

Another week, another cluster of schools abandoning the destructive practices and programming of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). With the Goldwater Institute spearheading the nationwide campaign to defeat DEI, Americans are rejecting the hatred and discrimination that hide behind feel-good buzzwords.

This past week, Goldwater enacted a law to ban taxpayer-funded DEI from public colleges and universities in Kentucky. Meanwhile, the University of Michigan announced that it was similarly ditching DEI programs and initiatives.

It’s a good start, but it’s not enough—not yet. “To truly restore the intellectual integrity of the university, its administrators must ensure that the institution also eliminates DEI requirements currently forced upon students throughout its mandatory academic course requirements,” Goldwater Director of Education Policy Matt Beienburg tells Fox News.

We’re committed to ridding public universities of DEI’s footprint—until we’ve eliminated the DEI scourge for good.

Read more here.

Driverless Cars Are Driving the Future

Want to see the future of transportation? Head to Phoenix, and you’ll witness a quiet revolution under way. Autonomous vehicles—absent any human driver—navigate the city streets and highways with precision. But these aren’t test runs—they successful businesses taking real paying riders where they want to go.

In Arizona, driverless ride-hailing is an ordinary reality thanks to a regulatory model that prioritizes freedom and innovation over bureaucratic control, a new Goldwater Institute report reveals. The results speak for themselves: 81% fewer airbag-deployment crashes, 78% fewer injury-causing crashes, and 62% fewer police-reported crashes compared to human drivers.

The widespread adoption of autonomous vehicle technology presents a unique opportunity to drastically enhance road safety, provide better transportation options for elderly or disabled individuals, reduce traffic, and more. The roads of the future will see autonomous vehicles. And Arizona is already miles ahead.

Read more here.