Week in Review: Union Time on the Public Dime? Not in AZ.

In cities and states across America, public employees are “released” from their government responsibilities and instead are assigned to work for their private union—all while receiving full government pay, retirement, and other benefits. It’s a major violation of taxpayer rights, and Goldwater has been working in courts and capitols to put an end to this corrupt practice.

We scored our latest victory against “release time” in our home state. This week, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey signed Goldwater’s Release Time Reform Act, a first-in-the-nation law that stops government workers from politicking on the taxpayer’s dime.

“Public funds should advance the public’s interest, not the political and lobbying activities of private labor unions,” said Goldwater Institute President and CEO Victor Riches. “This law will ensure that tax dollars cannot be used to pay government workers to lobby and engage in political activities for labor unions instead of working for the public.”

Read more at In Defense of Liberty.

We Can Save Lives—by Passing Goldwater’s Reform

For the past few years, Goldwater’s Right to Try law has been saving lives giving a new hope to terminally ill Americans. Now, we’re working to expand Right to Try to help even more patients and unleash the future of medicine.

Technology has “made it possible to take an individual’s genetic information and create a treatment for that individual person,” Goldwater Director of Healthcare Policy Naomi Lopez writes this week in The Orange County Register. But one-size-fits-all FDA regulations—created more than a half-century ago—are stifling these lifesaving innovations.

Desperate patients don’t have time to wait for the FDA. That’s why we’re working in states across the country to pass Right to Try 2.0, which would empower seriously ill patients to access treatments tailored to a person’s own unique genetic makeup. “Right to Try for Individualized Treatments accounts for new innovations—and it helps get those innovations to the patients who need them,” Lopez adds.

Read the full op-ed in The Orange County Register.

Here’s Why We Need Academic Transparency…in 35 Seconds

“A parent shouldn’t have to have their child in a school, find material that is clearly not academically appropriate, and now be faced with a decision of grumbling to a school board who may or may not be sympathetic to them, or take their kid out of school." – @MBeienburg pic.twitter.com/idggCQQMkG

— Goldwater Institute (@GoldwaterInst) March 29, 2022

Got 35 seconds? Then you ought to watch this important video to learn why it’s so important to protect parents’ right to know what their children are going to learn in school before they make an enrollment decision.

Goldwater’s Matt Beienburg, Director of the Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy and Director of Education Policy, summed up the reason perfectly during recent testimony before Arizona House lawmakers. “A parent shouldn’t have to have their child in a school, find material that is clearly not academically appropriate, and now be faced with a decision of grumbling to a school board who may or may not be sympathetic to them, or take their kid out of school, away from their friends, their established environment,” Beienburg said.

Instead, parents should know up front what’s being taught in a school so they can decide for themselves whether or not that school is prioritizing academics. “To make that information available for current parents, prospective parents, the public, and other teachers to be able to see that information shouldn’t be something that’s controversial.”

Watch video of Beienburg’s remarks here.