Speaker 1: So so much to talk about with Tim sander for
Speaker 1: Vice President for Litigation the Goldwater Institute. Tim's latest book,
Speaker 1: Freedom's Furies. How Isabel Patterson Rosewilder Lane ein Rand found
Speaker 1: liberty in the age of darkness? In an age of darkness?
Speaker 2: There are many owes.
Speaker 1: You a facetive American history nobody ever talks about in
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, how enamored the progressives were with totalitarians,
Speaker 1: And on that note, perhaps introduced our crusader for liberty,
Speaker 1: Tim sanderfer hate Tim.
Speaker 3: Hey guys, thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: And as I always like to point out, referred to
Speaker 2: as a national treasure by George will of The Washington Post,
Speaker 2: Tim Sanderford.
Speaker 3: But fortunately I'm not in a senator's closet like other treasures.
Speaker 2: Right, that's gold bars. Wow, that is old school. Anyways.
Speaker 3: I guess you go in there with a pocket knife
Speaker 3: and like skim off a few shavings and use those
Speaker 3: to go buy gas or something.
Speaker 1: I guess I wonder if he actually had those sacks
Speaker 1: of money with dollar signs on.
Speaker 3: I was signing them like scooge McDuck.
Speaker 1: You know, all right, Well, let's get down to business
Speaker 1: there has been a seemingly large victory recently in Maricopa
Speaker 1: County that's a Phoenix essentially Arizona, where a judge has
Speaker 1: said enough with the junkie camps. Can you explain to
Speaker 1: folks what happened.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, this is a lawsuit that's been going on
Speaker 3: for quite a while now because of the city purposely
Speaker 3: creating an open air homeless shelter so to speak, in
Speaker 3: the streets of downtown Phoenix, where over a thousand people
Speaker 3: at a time have resided in tents right on the streets,
Speaker 3: and that the city has been transporting the homeless people
Speaker 3: to this area and then just saying do what you want,
Speaker 3: We're not going to enforce the law, which of course
Speaker 3: has been destroying the local businesses, ruining people's homes in
Speaker 3: the area. It's been leading to there's been arson, there
Speaker 3: have been dead bodies found in this area, all these
Speaker 3: sorts of you know, sewage in the streets. So there's
Speaker 3: a group of them filed a lawsuit, and what happened
Speaker 3: earlier this week was a trial judge in America County
Speaker 3: has declared that the city is maintaining a public nuisance
Speaker 3: and must clear up the area before November fourth. That
Speaker 3: means remove all the tents and get rid of the
Speaker 3: sewage and stop allowing the law breaking in this area.
Speaker 2: Get rid of the sewage is a sanitized way to
Speaker 2: explain what was going on there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, Arizona law, like what most states,
Speaker 3: prohibits the people from polluting in a way that will
Speaker 3: run off into the local rivers and things. And here
Speaker 3: in Phoenix, you know we had when we get a
Speaker 3: rain storm. Man, it's a huge flash flood rainstorm.
Speaker 2: It's squashed looting, polluting, yet another loyally high follutin way
Speaker 2: of saying people are crapping on the streets.
Speaker 3: Exactly, that's right, and on the sides of people's buildings,
Speaker 3: on their home. Our client in the case actually had
Speaker 3: to replace the windows in his building because the urine
Speaker 3: was so bad that it had rotted away the seals
Speaker 3: on all of their windows.
Speaker 2: That's gross.
Speaker 3: Now, the reason this has been going on is not
Speaker 3: just because the city has been refusing to enforce the law.
Speaker 3: But when you ask the city, they say, well, our
Speaker 3: hands are tied because the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Speaker 3: has issued a couple decisions that say that it's unconstitutional
Speaker 3: for us to arrest people for sleeping on the streets
Speaker 3: if there are not enough shelter beds in homeless shelters
Speaker 3: to give them a place to stay for the night. Now,
Speaker 3: it is true. The Ninth Circuit issued a couple rulings,
Speaker 3: one called Martin versus Boise, another ones called Johnson versus
Speaker 3: Grants Pass that both do say that it's unconstitutional for
Speaker 3: the government to arrest people for sleeping on the streets
Speaker 3: if they can't help it, and they define can't help
Speaker 3: it as there aren't enough shelter beds available. And worse
Speaker 3: than that, the ruling actually excludes from the count any
Speaker 3: shelter beds at churches, any shelter beds that churches operate.
Speaker 3: Those are religious, those not secular, those don't count when
Speaker 3: you count how many shelter bus.
Speaker 2: So, so outlawing any Christian charity or church charity, that's fandast.
Speaker 3: That's basically ruling out the number one source of homeless
Speaker 3: shelters right anyway. So the big story here really is
Speaker 3: that that one of those cases, the Grants Past case,
Speaker 3: the people have now asked the U. S. Supreme Court
Speaker 3: to take up that case, and in the ruling that
Speaker 3: this judge in Phoenix issued he urges the U. S.
Speaker 3: Supreme Court to take up that case. He says, to
Speaker 3: the extent that a state trial judge could have any
Speaker 3: influence on the US Supreme Court's decision to review a
Speaker 3: lower court ruling. This judge respectfully urges the Supreme Court
Speaker 3: to review that ruling and overrule it because it has
Speaker 3: caused so much chaos in the Western States, because cities
Speaker 3: see it as an excuse to not enforce laws against
Speaker 3: loitering and camping and so forth.
Speaker 1: Well, I was just going to ask, Tim, you know
Speaker 1: so much more about this than we do, given the
Speaker 1: unbelievable negative effects of that. You know, I usually cite
Speaker 1: the ruling but grants pass as well. How has the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court not looked into this, particularly given its current makeup.
Speaker 3: The Court has this long standing tradition of allowing things
Speaker 3: to develop in the lower courts before it takes up
Speaker 3: an issue, and sometimes an important issue gets postponed for
Speaker 3: years before the US Supreme Court finally decides to take
Speaker 3: it up. But I don't see how they could possibly
Speaker 3: refuse to take up the issue at this point. It
Speaker 3: has caused so much chaos or I mean that's a
Speaker 3: little bit unfair because, to be fair to the Ninth Circuit, there,
Speaker 3: the Martin case and the grands Pass case both say
Speaker 3: that cities can still enforce laws against camping in the streets,
Speaker 3: at least under certain circumstances. And so what's actually happening
Speaker 3: here in Phoenix is that the city officials are using
Speaker 3: these cases as an excuse to not do their job.
Speaker 3: And it's a colorable excuse. It's you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: not a totally crazy interpretation of those cases. But it's
Speaker 3: really the fault of local officials who are refusing to
Speaker 3: take action because it's politically unpopular. They want us, you know, oh,
Speaker 3: we have to build housing first. All these sorts of excuses,
Speaker 3: and these these Ninth Circuit rulings are convenient excuses to
Speaker 3: refuse to take actions.
Speaker 2: Well, since you follow the Supreme Court so closely in
Speaker 2: the thinking of all the justices, what do you think
Speaker 2: they would do with this issue?
Speaker 3: Oh? I think they would definitely overturn it because the
Speaker 3: logic is crazy. What the Ninth Circuit says is a
Speaker 3: person is involuntarily homeless if there aren't shelter beds available
Speaker 3: for them, that the government provides, and therefore it's cruel
Speaker 3: and unusual punishment to arrest them for sleeping on the streets.
Speaker 3: This is crazy logic. By this logic, if I were
Speaker 3: to go to a bar and get drunk and then
Speaker 3: drive home drunk from the bar, it's not my fault
Speaker 3: because the government didn't hire me an uber. You know,
Speaker 3: the whole theory here is that people are incapable of
Speaker 3: controlling themselves unless the government steps in and controls them
Speaker 3: for them, and then otherwise they're just they're helpless little
Speaker 3: waves who couldn't possibly take acts. It's a crazy way
Speaker 3: of looking at the world, although you know there are
Speaker 3: a lot of people who idlow logically just think that
Speaker 3: you can't run your own life without the government stepping
Speaker 3: in to hold your hand all the.
Speaker 1: Time, right, you know, I'd have thought that because of
Speaker 1: the enormous human cost of so many of these junkie camps,
Speaker 1: as I generally refer to them, because addiction is the
Speaker 1: number one reason for most of these people being on
Speaker 1: the street, and certainly not exclusively, but it is. There
Speaker 1: are just dens of drug addictions, but the number of
Speaker 1: overdose deaths has shocked the conscience of every American over
Speaker 1: the last several years.
Speaker 2: I can't believe.
Speaker 1: Maybe do the Supreme Court justices not get the nexus
Speaker 1: between drug addiction and homelessness.
Speaker 3: I think that the Ninth Circuit, you know, it's the
Speaker 3: Ninth Circuit, And their view is that, you know, these
Speaker 3: people need to be treated in some other fashion. We
Speaker 3: shouldn't arrest them, we shouldn't in voluntarily take them and
Speaker 3: move them somewhere else, and these sorts of things, and
Speaker 3: this is a sort of false compassion. They think that, well,
Speaker 3: we don't want to be cruel to these people, Okay,
Speaker 3: so you're all alternative is to let them sleep on
Speaker 3: the streets, and not just sleep on the streets, but
Speaker 3: for well over a year now in Phoenix, Arizona, where
Speaker 3: in the summer it gets one hundred and twenty degrees
Speaker 3: and during the pandemic. This is what you think is
Speaker 3: a more compassionate alternative than getting these people treatment, even
Speaker 3: if it might be quote involuntary treatment. And that logic
Speaker 3: escapes me.
Speaker 2: Well, then in n angle always bring up us how
Speaker 2: about compassion for taxpayers and business owners? So is there
Speaker 2: any way to have the law be leaning toward how
Speaker 2: about my right to live in this neighborhood and go
Speaker 2: to my local park and not be afraid or not
Speaker 2: have junkies in the doorway of my business, so I
Speaker 2: can operate.
Speaker 3: Totally right, absolutely, the real victims here of what Phoenix
Speaker 3: has done, I mean, the homeless have suffered badly enough,
Speaker 3: But on top of that, the real victims are the innocent,
Speaker 3: tax paying property owners and business owners in this area.
Speaker 3: The New York Times a while back profiled one of
Speaker 3: the business owners, a guy who runs a really well
Speaker 3: known sandwich shop. Who's I mean, not only have has
Speaker 3: it there been the pollution. Not only do people just
Speaker 3: not come there anymore because they don't want to be
Speaker 3: around them.
Speaker 2: I like what you call human crap pollution.
Speaker 3: But go on, but a lot of homeless people are
Speaker 3: coming into the business, harassing and endangering the employees. He
Speaker 3: has to then he's basically being drafted into being a
Speaker 3: psychological counselor for people with mental problems and drug addiction,
Speaker 3: right because the government refuses to come in and do
Speaker 3: its job. Now, what are the alternative? There is actually
Speaker 3: a proposal that we've been working on that says, if
Speaker 3: the government fails to do its job under these kinds
Speaker 3: of circumstances and it destroys the value of your property.
Speaker 3: The government should compensate you for the loss of property value,
Speaker 3: because they're the ones that fault for ruining your property.
Speaker 3: And we will have more to say on that once
Speaker 3: we've developed more among those lines really interesting.
Speaker 1: Tim Sander for Vice President for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute.
Speaker 2: Tim I came across an.
Speaker 1: Article in the USA today surprisingly about a woman who
Speaker 1: is being denied the right to open to business because
Speaker 1: she wasn't able to get one of those certificates of necessity.
Speaker 2: Is that what they're called? Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3: These are basically permit laws that say they don't have
Speaker 3: anything to do with whether you are capable or whether
Speaker 3: you have the education or card. It doesn't have anything
Speaker 3: to do with that. These are laws that say you
Speaker 3: have to first get permission from all of the competitors
Speaker 3: who are already in that industry before you're allowed to
Speaker 3: start a business. And guess what, they usually say no
Speaker 3: because they don't want economic competition. And these kinds of
Speaker 3: laws are called con laws. Appropriately enough, these kinds of
Speaker 3: laws apply to everything from moving companies to medical clinics
Speaker 3: in this country, and it's totally insane and in my view,
Speaker 3: totally unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we'll have more on that to come. We
Speaker 1: appreciate the time very much. Keep fighting the good fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes I think sanity might have a chance.
Speaker 1: Not often, but occasionally.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you, guys, the law part is my job,
Speaker 3: the sanity part, that's your job.
Speaker 1: Well, God to help them, Erica. Effluvium is my favorite
Speaker 1: word for human waste. By the way, it's so musical.
Speaker 1: Tim Sandifer, good to talk to you, Tim, Thanks Budd
Speaker 3: Thanks guys, Armstrong and Getty