It was a staggering fine—$37.7 million—levied by the Biden Administration against a private university, all based on questionable allegations of misleading doctoral students about course requirements. But when the Goldwater Institute requested records to help explain it, the administration refused. In a win for government transparency, a federal court has now ordered the Department of Education to tun over several of those documents.
The Biden Administration’s 2023 fine against Phoenix-based Grand Canyon University dwarfed all previous fines issues by the Department of Education—for context, the department only fined Penn State $2.4 million for failing to report the crimes of serial pedophile Jerry Sandusky. When Goldwater filed a Freedom of Information Act request for basic information about what led to the fine, the government claimed it would take half a year to respond and then declined to turn over many records.
In a new ruling, a federal court ordered the government to turn over press releases, briefing records, and several other documents it wrongly withheld. The ruling sends a powerful message: government agencies must comply with transparency laws—the Goldwater Institute will continue to ensure they do.
Local and national media—not to mention the wine industry itself—are taking notice now that the Goldwater Institute has informed Santa Barbara County, Calif., leaders that their ordinance forcing local wineries to join and fund a marketing collective is unconstitutional. “I don’t think they’ve even considered the Constitution,” Goldwater Senior Attorney Adam Shelton told national radio host Lars Larson.
The Supreme Court has made it clear: the government can’t compel private associations or force Americans to subsidize speech they disagree with. But that’s exactly what Santa Barbara County is mandating with its wine “Business Improvement District,” which requires all wineries to join the local Vintners Association and to pay a 1% fee on their sales to fund the association’s marketing.
The mandate is squeezing wineries like Flying Goat Cellars, Goldwater’s client, and forcing them to fund marketing they fear will favor bigger, wealthier businesses. And it comes as California wineries are facing several economic pressures. “So, right now to incur a 1% assessment above our tax on our wines … has been just very, very difficult for us to absorb,” Flying Goat founder Norm Yost told a local television station.
The Goldwater Institute is asking the county to repeal its unconstitutional mandate—and it’s prepared to go to court to defend Flying Goat’s constitutional rights.
Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fork over extra money for government projects simply because union lobbyists demand special privileges. Now, more than 40 years after voters banned so-called “prevailing wage” contracts, the Arizona Court of Appeals—siding with the Goldwater Institute—ruled that the cities of Phoenix and Tucson can’t thwart that law by instituting prevailing wages under the guise of minimum wages.
In 1984, a majority of Arizona voters approved an initiative prohibiting local governments from approving prevailing wage contracts, which are based on complex formulas that average what other contractors in the region are paid. To get around that law, Phoenix and Tucson leaders seized on a 2016 initiative that established a new statewide minimum wage—and allowed cities to impose higher minimum wages—to establish prevailing wage requirements. But prevailing wages are much higher than minimum wages and are essentially rewards for well-connected union lobbyists.
Lawyers for Phoenix and Tucson argued that a prevailing wage is a kind of minimum wage, an argument the court rightly rejected. Government leaders will often go to great lengths to appease union activists, which is why the Goldwater Institute will always stand up for the rights of taxpayers in Arizona and around the country.
