Week in Review: The Greatest Gift 

For millions of Americans, the holiday season is a time for family as well as giving and receiving gifts. But for Maya Reinhardt of Colorado, the greatest gift of all is the gift of life. And it was made possible thanks in part to the Right to Try, a Goldwater Institute law that protects terminally ill patients’ right to access medicines that have not yet been approved by the federal government for market.

In a new Goldwater video, Maya and her mom share how Right to Try opened the door to a treatment that offered her a new lease on life, despite Maya suffering from cystic fibrosis, a genetic condition that threatened her very existence.

“All of a sudden I was no longer dying. All of a sudden I was no longer sick,” Maya explained. “I’m as healthy and happy as everybody else. I’m in university getting A’s and B’s in my classes studying biotech. You just, you never know what’s going to happen, so you can’t stop fighting just because you think your fate is sealed. Because it’s not.”

Click here to watch Maya’s incredible story.

 
Why is Texas Outsourcing its Government to…Canada?

Anyone who’s met a Texan knows how proud they are of their state. Some of them even prefer the term “the Free State of Texas.” That’s why it’s so puzzling that Texas lawmakers would turn to foreign governments—including Australia and Canada—rather than the United States, when it comes to regulating food safety.

A new Texas law does just that. It mandates that soda makers post warning labels on their products stating that they contain “an ingredient that is not recommended for human consumption by the appropriate authority in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom”—even though the chemicals in question are deemed safe by the United States Food and Drug Administration.

In a new brief filed in a federal lawsuit that challenges the law, the Goldwater Institute explains that the soda warning mandate is a violation of the First Amendment. The Constitution does not allow states to regulate food safety or to outsource their governing responsibilities to foreign governments. They also can’t force people or businesses to say things against their will.

Read more from Goldwater’s Timothy Sandefur here.

WEBINAR: Busting Myths About Arizona’s ESA Program

More than 97,000 Arizona students are now getting the education they deserve thanks to the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program. But that’s not stopping the media and other detractors from attacking its success. In a new Love Your Schools webinar, the Goldwater Institute’s Matthew Beienburg busted myths about the groundbreaking program.

“Education debates are often heavy on commentary and light on facts,” Beienburg noted during the webinar. That imbalance has fueled widespread misconceptions about ESAs—misconceptions that Goldwater has been challenging with evidence for years.

The Goldwater Institute developed ESAs to put families—not government—in charge of education funding. Already, 14 states have adopted universal school-choice programs modeled after Goldwater’s original model. These programs not only empower families but also cost taxpayers less per student than the public school systems that have failed to meet their needs.

Watch the webinar here.