This Memorial Day weekend, we remember the men and women who sacrificed everything to defend American freedom and liberty.
“America was founded on the revolutionary truth that our rights are inherent and inalienable – they do not come from government, but belong by nature to every person,” writes Jon Riches, a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve and the Goldwater Institute’s vice president for litigation. “The Constitution was established to secure those liberties, and every servicemember swears an oath not to a ruler or political party, but to support and defend that Constitution and the freedom it protects.”
Throughout American history, brave heroes have given their lives to ensure that freedom would endure. Memorial Day is an annual reminder that freedom is never free.
Georgia property owners can expect increased accountability from the government thanks to a pair of Goldwater Institute reforms that promise to streamline local permitting processes and ensure that laws related to homelessness are enforced.
To provide developers with much needed predictability, Gov. Brian Kemp has signed Senate Bill 447, a law influenced by Goldwater’s Permit Freedom Act that will reduce arbitrary decision making by guaranteeing that permits are reviewed fairly, consistently, and efficiently. Kemp also signed House Bill 295, legislation modeled on Goldwater’s Safe Neighborhoods Act, which will empower property owners to file claims when government officials allow homelessness to grow unchecked and harm neighborhoods.
In addition, by passing House Bill 1247, lawmakers made sure that the cards will no longer be stacked against average Georgians when they challenge the government in court. The bill—portions of which were modeled on Goldwater’s Judicial Deference Reform Act—ends the practice of courts deferring to government agencies’ interpretations of the law and their own regulations.
These new Georgia laws will go a long way to ensuring that the government is answerable to the people. Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute will continue to fight for government accountability in statehouses from coast to coast.
Read more about the Permit Freedom Act here.
Read more about the Safe Neighborhoods Act here.
Read more about the Judicial Deference Reform Act here.
The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was playing a game of “heads, I win; tails, you lose,” in its years-long effort to block the release of public records related to a 2020 death investigation. But a local judge saw through the ruse in a ruling in favor of the Goldwater Institute’s clients, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and one of its reporters.
As part of its reporting on the closed death investigation, the Post-Dispatch requested the written narratives of the responding officers. The department, however, refused to provide them, arguing both that the narratives weren’t an official part of the incident report—which is always a public record—and also that they weren’t separate investigative records because they were attached to the incident report. But law enforcement agencies don’t get to have it both ways, which is why the St. Louis City Circuit judge correctly ordered the department to release the records.
The public has a right to know what the public officials are up to. That’s why the Goldwater Institute will always fight to ensure that governments aren’t operating in the shadows.
As America celebrates the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, join the Goldwater Institute for a special webinar discussion on Timothy Sandefur’s new book Proclaiming Liberty, a powerful exploration of the ideas that gave birth to the American experiment in freedom.
On June 22, 2026, join Timothy Sandefur live at 11AM AZ / 2PM Eastern for a live webinar to discuss his new book and why our nation’s revolutionary ideas are still relevant today.
