Institute for Justice

Ed Brayton rightly criticizes the Arizona Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit to try to prevent Arizona from giving corporate tax credits for donations to organizations that provide private school tuition for students from low-income families. The AzCLU has previously failed in two lawsuits to eliminate the state income tax credit for individual donations to private school tuition organizations. There is no reason to believe this third lawsuit will be anything but a waste of money. As Ed points out, this is not a violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution (or the Arizona Constitution’s prohibition on state funds being used to promote religion) because no state funds are going directly to any religious organization. I support the Institute for Justice on this issue, and this is a reason I’ve never given funds to the AzCLU (though I support the ACLU Foundation). I am a beneficiary of the individual state tax credit–I annually make the maximum qualifying contribution to the Arizona School Choice Trust, which is the single most efficient charity I donate to (100% of donations are distributed as tuition payments for students from low-income families; salaries for employees and administrative overhead are paid by another private organization). UPDATE (June 7, 2007): Judge Janet Barton granted the Institute for Justice’s motion to dismiss this case, back in March. UPDATE (March 12, 2009): The Institute for Justice won this case again today in the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Sam Coppersmith complains that legislators seeking restrictions on eminent domain abuse are wasting their time (and apparently that they are trying to create a diversion from other more important issues). Sure, Arizona has better protections in place than most states (as demonstrated by the decisions in Bailey v. Myers (link is a PDF) and City of Tempe v. Valentine) , but why is it any surprise that there is extensive support for expanding such protections in the aftermath of the Kelo decision? The failure of his column to even mention that decision strikes me as disingenuous. The Castle Coalition and the Institute for Justice have very strong grassroots support on this issue, and it’s not a partisan issue.

Clint Bolick and Alan Dershowitz have written two very different–yet only occasionally directly contradictory–rememberances of Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Bolick, in a piece distributed by the Goldwater Institute and published in the Arizona Republic, describes Rehnquist as a conservative, moderating influence on a liberal court, advocating state’s rights, school choice, and presiding over a court that has been “usually (though less frequently lately) siding with individual liberty over state power.” Dershowitz, on the other hand, in a piece published on the Huffington Post, describes Rehnquist as a bigot who enjoyed racist and anti-Semitic jokes, who defended the “separate but equal” doctrine in Plessy v. Ferguson as a law clerk for Justice Jackson, and who began his legal career as a Republican thug who obstructed African-American and Hispanic voters at Phoenix polling places. Bolick gives a more nuanced view that actually addresses more of Rehnquist’s work on the court (though less than I would have expected), while Dershowitz emphasizes evidence of Rehnquist’s personal character which mostly derives from before he was on the Supreme Court. I was surprised that Bolick didn’t mention some of the recent cases (such as Raich v. Ashcroft and Kelo v. New London) where Rehnquist voted for liberty (and was unfortunately in the minority). Yet I have no doubt that there is accuracy in both descriptions. Bolick has in the past seen people as defenders of liberty who have done much to destroy it, such as former Attorney General John Ashcroft. Dershowitz alternatively takes courageous stands in defense of liberty and crazy stands which oppose it. One area where I was less than impressed with Rehnquist was on religious liberty, specifically for nonbelievers. He (like the majority) went the wrong way on Elk Grove v. Newdow (the Pledge of Allegiance “under God” case) and (unlike the majority) the wrong way on the McCreary County v. ACLU case (Ten Commandments display in a Kentucky courtroom which included a written statement that the display was “in remembrance and honor of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Ethics”).