ZadekpediaThe Goldwater Institute is a libertarian think tank described by Bob Zadek as “a most important and influential think tank based in Arizona, but whose influence is felt throughout the country.” Guests associated with the Institute appear across three episodes of The Bob Zadek Show, discussing constitutional revision, the overdose crisis, and school choice.
Timothy Sandefur and the Libertarian Constitution
Timothy Sandefur, identified as Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute, appeared to discuss the National Constitution Center’s Libertarian Constitution Project. Zadek explained that the Center, which he described as the only organization chartered by Congress to further understanding of the Constitution, commissioned three teams of scholars — libertarian, progressive, and conservative — each working independently to rewrite the Constitution in a way more consistent with their respective values. Sandefur was a member of the libertarian team. Zadek said the teams delivered three different Constitutions that differed quite dramatically in some respects, though all were more or less consistent with the current Constitution in terms of its structure, and in many ways the three teams reached very similar conclusions. Sandefur’s own summary of the team’s work was that “we rescued the Constitution.” Zadek described Sandefur as an adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute, a graduate of Hillsdale College and the Chapman School of Law, and a professor of law at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law, who litigates extensively on property rights and individual freedom issues and has written many books. The episode’s topics list the revisions as intended to restore federalism, protect individual property rights, eliminate the income tax, and constrain the administrative state and executive war powers. Timothy Sandefur on The Libertarian Constitution (2021)
Jeffrey Singer and the Overdose Crisis
Dr. Jeffrey Singer, a practicing general surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, was introduced by Zadek as a senior fellow at the Cato Institute who works in Cato’s Department of Health Policy Studies, president emeritus and founder of the Valley Surgical Clinics in Phoenix, and a visiting fellow at the Goldwater Institute in Phoenix. Zadek also identified him as a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the American Council on Science and Health. Zadek framed the episode around government intrusion into individual decision-making, into the relationship between doctor and patient, and into the business affairs of drug companies. Zadek said he hoped to blow away some of the smoke and confusion surrounding opioids so that listeners could follow media coverage on an informed basis. Singer responded that he was happy to be back on the show. Fresh Approaches to the Overdose Crisis (2022)
Matt Beienburg and Arizona School Choice
Matt Beienburg, Director of Education Policy at the Goldwater Institute, appeared in two episodes to discuss Arizona’s universal school choice legislation. Zadek credited Beienburg and the Institute with persuading the Arizona legislature to adopt legislation he called probably the most far-reaching of any legislation in the country, allowing citizens for the first time to free themselves from the monopoly of government education and choose the school they wish their children to attend, with tuition substantially if not completely paid for by the state. Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022)
Beienburg described the federal government as having no authority in the United States Constitution to involve itself in K-12 education, and said most state constitutions, Arizona among them, contain provisions requiring the state to provide a public school system. He said Arizona spends over $11,000 per kid per year from state and local taxes alone, on top of thousands of dollars of federal funds, while an ESA offers families an education for $7,000. He described Arizona as having open enrollment for districts, independently operated public charter schools, and now a system of ESAs, all of which prioritize making sure families have a choice. Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022)
Beienburg also argued that during COVID, teachers’ unions obtained almost $200 billion of federal COVID stimulus bailout funds for public schools at the same time they were closing schools, and that a million students across the country dropped out of public schools during that period. He said the unions organized protests in Arizona and elsewhere with fake tombstones, fake coffins, and fake obituaries. Zadek offered the economic framing of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, arguing that the benefit per teacher in salary, tenure, and lifetime job security is large while the cost to any one family is low, so teachers collectively have more at stake individually than parents do, and that change comes only when parents organize and have a single voice through Goldwater and others. Beienburg agreed. Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022)
Zadek raised the objection of childless couples who might wonder why they must be taxed to pay for other families’ children, and answered it himself: that it has long since been decided, going back to Jefferson and the founders, that democracy requires an informed electorate, and therefore education is considered by almost all a public good. Beienburg responded that childless adults currently pay far more in taxes for students to attend a public school system, and that the ESA program offers an alternative to families otherwise stuck in public school. Asked whether public education as an institution has outlived its usefulness, Beienburg said public education has been divorced from its original purpose, that teachers’ unions have taken it from being focused on students to a model for pushing a political agenda, and that the NEA and others have gone all in on indoctrination, pushing concepts like CRT and the 1619 Project. He characterized the result as a system of monopoly with the force of government behind it, dominated by one constituency, the unions. Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022)
Across episodes: the Institute’s two fronts
The episodes show the Goldwater Institute’s work treated in two distinct arenas rather than one developing argument. In the 2021 episode, Sandefur’s Institute role is the platform for constitutional revision at the national level; in the two 2022 school choice episodes, Beienburg’s Institute role is the platform for state-level legislative advocacy in Arizona. The two 2022 episodes — Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022) and Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022) — present substantially the same introduction and framing of the Arizona legislation, with no development between the earlier and later treatment visible on the show. Singer’s episode touches the Institute only through his visiting fellowship.
Guests and episodes
2 appearances by 2 guests, 2021–2022. Guests A–Z by first name.
- Matt Beienburg (Goldwater Institute) — Arizona’s School Choice Reform is a Model for the Nation (2022) — Arizona universal school choice and empowerment scholarship accounts.
- Timothy Sandefur (Goldwater Institute) — Timothy Sandefur on The Libertarian Constitution (2021) — The Libertarian Constitution Project.