IJ Engineers A Trip To The Arizona Supreme Court To Expand Economic Liberty

2026 marks the 25th anniversary of IJ’s Arizona office. To celebrate, we are going to the Arizona Supreme Court to address an issue we have been working on since IJ-AZ opened: the greater protections for economic liberty under the Arizona Constitution.

IJ has been fighting and winning Arizona economic liberty cases for years. We have represented natural hair braiders, small-scale landscapers and gardeners, eyebrow threaders, and animal massage therapists. All these cases were wins. But all were won before we ever got a court ruling. IJ’s success in the court of public opinion resulted in victories by the government throwing in the towels and changing the law before the courts could act.

Now we finally have our first chance to make our economic liberty argument to the state’s Supreme Court. 

For decades before IJ was founded, economic liberty cases were all but impossible to win in federal courts. This was due to a string of U.S. Supreme Court decisions that rolled back protections for economic liberty under the “rational basis test.” Some courts interpret that deferential standard as requiring judges to uphold regulations if they can imagine any possible justification—even ones the government itself never raised—without looking at the real consequences or purported benefits of the regulation. 

Even so, those federal decisions did not change state constitutional protections. Most states have a history of greater economic liberty protections under their own constitutions. We set out to remind courts of their role as an engaged check on government overreach, starting with state constitutional protections for the right to earn a living.

And IJ has had great success; in just the last 10 years, we have convinced supreme courts in Texas, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and North Carolina that their constitutions are more protective of economic liberty than is the federal Constitution.

Arizona is like these other states. Certainly before and even years after the U.S. Supreme Court largely abandoned protections for economic liberty, Arizona maintained meaningful protections for the right to earn a living. But in 1981, the Arizona Supreme Court suddenly stopped applying its own constitution and just adopted, in lockstep, federal rational basis. The court gave no reason for this departure. It didn’t even acknowledge the many decades of its own decisions. By taking up IJ’s latest economic liberty case in the state, the Arizona Supreme Court finally has a chance to rediscover its own rights-affirming jurisprudence.

Our case is on behalf of Greg Mills. Greg is an engineer. He worked as an engineer for decades, designing electronic circuits for everything from flashlights to satellites. This was perfectly legal because he was a full-time employee of a manufacturer. 

But then Greg started his own business. He still does the same work for manufacturers, start-ups, and entrepreneurs. He helps them take their ideas from concept to prototype. He simply works as a consultant rather than an employee.

Arizona says that is illegal. Greg has to be a licensed “Professional Engineer” if he wants to work for himself. Yet “PEs” don’t engineer products. They engineer buildings, dams, bridges, and the like. The majority of engineers in this country are not PEs. They don’t need to be to do their engineering work. To become a PE, Greg would have to close his own successful company and work for a PE for 8 years, doing a different kind of engineering, just to get back to the job that he has always done.

Whether or not this ridiculousness could withstand the federal rational basis test, it certainly cannot survive the greater protection for economic liberty that the Arizona Constitution promises. When we argue Greg’s case at the state’s high court later this year, we will make sure that Arizona courts get back to delivering on that promise.

Paul Avelar is managing attorney of IJ’s Arizona office.