Last week the Tucson based Arizona Policy Institute (API) held their coming out party at the University Marriott. API will be Tucson’s answer to the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation. They will focus on bringing lawsuits against government infrigement of private property rights and against government overstepping its lawful authority. Based on comments from last week’s event, they will be entering a target rich environment.

While not directly linked with Goldwater, API appeared to have their blessing. Clint Bolick from the Scharf-Norton Center attended the API kickoff and stated their was plenty of work to go around.

The API will be headed by local businessman and former UA football player Tanner Bell. The institute will also have some legal resources that have already won private property cases in Pima County.

It is refreshing to see a Goldwater style legal action group get going in Tucson. It will be fun to watch as local government discovers that they can no longer run rough shod over private property rights and pass out taxpayer subsidized gifts to private companies.