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Winning for Liberty: Goldwater's Latest Litigation Victories — April 2021

April 23, 2021

This month, the Goldwater Institute is pleased to share multiple victories on behalf of clients by attorneys at our Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation and through our American Freedom Network of pro bono attorneys:
 
Economic Liberty: Across the country, occupational licensing boards and regulatory bodies erect arbitrary barriers to hardworking Americans working to earn an honest living.  In Arizona, the Goldwater Institute designed and helped pass the nation’s first universal licensing recognition laws—allowing professionals licensed in other states to be admitted to practice in Arizona.  Now, we have secured the first enforcement victory under this law, enabling an accomplished psychologist in good standing in California to practice her profession in Arizona.  
 
Related—The Goldwater Institute has passed its universal licensing recognition law in over a dozen states, and dozens more have introduced it.  Recently, Goldwater passed its law in Mississippi with the help of our friends at the Mississippi Center for Public Policy. 
 
Free Speech: As cancel culture sweeps the country, high school and college campuses are particularly susceptible to threats against freedom of thought and differing viewpoints. In Florida, Goldwater Institute and American Freedom Network attorneys successfully defended a high school student who was sent home and had parking privileges rescinded for carrying a pro-Trump elephant sign in his truck bed.  
 
In Arizona, a Network attorney secured victory and a financial settlement for Rae’Lee Klein—a college journalism student who retweeted the link to a news article related to the shooting of Jacob Blake in 2020.  For this, she was removed from her paying job as Arizona State University’s student radio station manager and exposed to public criticism by her peers and school administration—including the dean of the journalism school. 
 
Institute and Network attorneys received a favorable decision from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in their defense of Oregon attorneys who object to being forced to associate with the private state bar to practice law and to having their bar dues used to advocate for causes with which they do not agree.  The Fifth Circuit recently heard oral argument in a bar challenge brought with our friends at the Pelican Institute for Public Policy in Louisiana.  
 
Related—we have an ongoing case in the Tenth Circuit as well, where American Freedom Network attorneys are assisting in defending freedom of speech and association for Oklahoma lawyers. 
 
Gift Clause: The Goldwater Institute won a major victory for taxpayers at the Arizona Supreme Court—building on years of dedication to protecting Arizonans from improper subsidies and other “gifts” to private entities.  This success comes on top of a significant 2020 trial court ruling against the use of certain tax loopholes for developers in Phoenix. 
 
Property Rights: Thanks to partnership with an American Freedom Network attorney in Massachusetts, the Goldwater Institute claimed its third victory on behalf of victims of civil asset forfeiture—a legal mechanism whereby government agents may take and keep property without charging, let alone convicting, the owners with a crime. After six years, Malinda Harris will get her car back—a car that was seized in connection to a case involving her son.  Malinda was not aware of her son’s activities and was completely innocent of wrongdoing. Yet it took six years for her to regain her rightfully owned property.  Recently, Malinda shared her story with USA Today.  
 
Taxes: The Goldwater Institute is part of a team of lawyers representing taxpayers and other plaintiffs in a challenge to the largest tax hike in Arizona history passed by initiative in 2020.  The ballot initiative violated state constitutional requirements for how money can be raised and spent in the state, and unfortunately, is already having terrible effects on the state economy. Attorneys in the American Freedom Network are representing several amicus parties who will offer key insights on the legal issues before the Arizona Supreme Court.  
 
Related—the Goldwater Institute has joined a coalition supporting the phase out of Arizona’s income tax.
 
Transparency: Thanks to litigation brought by attorneys in the Goldwater Institute’s pro bono program, American Freedom Network, the Goldwater Institute has obtained documents that it requested from the FDA five years ago.  By statute, the FDA had 20 days to produce the records, yet the FDA ignored this statutory mandatory for five years. Attorneys engaged in the American Freedom network represented the Institute in seeking these records in federal court.  Delays and denials of public records requests are a perennial problem at the FDA and other federal and state agencies, and the Goldwater Institute and American Freedom Network Attorneys are actively working to hold the government accountable and promote transparency. 

 

 

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