The Goldwater Institute is a leading free-market public policy research and litigation organization that is dedicated to empowering all Americans to live freer, happier lives. We accomplish real results for liberty by working in state courts, legislatures, and communities nationwide to advance, defend, and strengthen the freedom guaranteed by the constitutions of the United States and the fifty states. Founded in 1988 in Phoenix with Senator Barry Goldwater’s blessing, the Institute focuses on advancing the principles of limited government, economic freedom, and individual liberty, with a focus on education, free speech, healthcare, equal protection, property rights, occupational licensing, and constitutional limits. The U.S. Constitution provides a basic minimum of protection for individual rights, while leaving states free to enact laws that protect those rights more broadly. That’s why we direct our efforts at the states, the “laboratories of democracy,” to introduce innovative ideas that expand freedom. And that’s why we litigate in state courts to defend individual liberty.