Friday Facts: June 5, 2026

School choice is one of the great policy success stories of the past decade. Across the country, lawmakers are launching new programs, states are lifting enrollment caps, and families are filling waitlists faster than the options can keep pace. In states like Georgia, the debate has moved past whether these programs should exist to how quickly they can grow to meet demand. That momentum is a testament to how much families value the freedom to choose what works best for their children.

The opportunity now is to back that success with the evidence to match it. 

As these programs mature, states have a chance to show the world what choice delivers: students who are learning, families who are finding better fits and staying with them, and participants who go on to enroll in and complete college at higher rates. The data already emerging from states like Florida is encouraging—and the more rigorously states report these outcomes, the harder it becomes for critics to dismiss what families across the country already know. 

We take a look at what outcomes states should be tracking in this week’s commentary.

– Kyle Wingfield

Friday’s Freshest 🗞️

Elections to the Supreme Court of Georgia have been nonpartisan since 1983, when the judicial system was modernized during an overhaul of the state constitution. Yet, this year’s race bore all the hallmarks of a partisan battle, complete with high-profile endorsements from former President Barack Obama on one side and Governor Brian Kemp on the other.

Gov. Kemp signed legislation that will streamline Georgia’s building permit process. Senate Bill 447, authored by Sen. Clint Dixon (R-Gwinnett), is designed to tighten Georgia’s existing 45-day timeframe for local governments to review building permit applications and to create clear application criteria for all parties involved, both local governments and developers.

On the governor’s final day to sign or veto legislation from this year’s session, the long wait for legislators and lobbyists finally ended. Just not in the way many would have hoped. Then, before the ink was even dry on the session’s final documents, Gov. Brian Kemp announced a special legislative session to convene on June 17.

Every year, thousands of Georgia parents fill out lottery applications for schools their children may never get to attend. Not because they can’t afford it, but because thousands of other Georgia families want the same thing and there simply aren’t enough seats. That school is a public charter school.

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Gov. Kemp announced that Authority Brands, a portfolio of well-known home-service brands, will establish its new headquarters in Cobb County, creating 390 new jobs and investing $13 million over the next several years. Authority Brands is a leading home services franchisor with 15 brands operating in more than 2,700 territories and served by over 1,000 franchise owners.

A new four-part investigation from Legal Newsline pulls back the curtain on Georgia’s lucrative car-wreck litigation market, where personal-injury lawyers funnel clients to favored doctors and outside funders quietly buy up inflated medical bills for massive returns. The opening installment follows one Spanish-speaking plaintiff who became a defendant in her own case and was paid to drop it and stay silent, illustrating how reform-minded scrutiny is finally forcing these arrangements into the open.

About a month after Spirit Airlines ceased operations, other airlines have flooded in to fill the gaps left when it stopped serving the 13 markets it covered from Atlanta. But Atlanta passengers are still left with a net loss in seats and only two ultra-low cost carriers: Frontier and Avelo Airlines.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced an investigation into MARTA, which will look into the transit agency’s security spending, safety protocols and risks to riders and workers. The decision comes shortly after the May 30 attack on a 66-year-old woman aboard a MARTA train and the May 24 stabbing of a 40-year-old man several times during an altercation at a MARTA station.

If last month’s party primaries were the opening act, Georgia voters can catch an encore performance in runoff votes June 16 for some of the highest-profile races, including the Republican nominees for governor and U.S. Senate, and races for constitutional state officers in both parties.

Note: Today is the last day to request an absentee ballot for Georgia’s June 16 primary runoffs, and in-person early voting runs only next Monday through Friday, June 8–12.

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Quote of the Week 🌟

Thomas Jefferson’s warning above remains timely because it captures a permanent tendency in public life: Government seldom gives back power easily. 

In moments of crisis, or out of convenience or good intentions, citizens are often asked to accept a little more control in exchange for promised security or efficiency. Sometimes action is necessary. But Jefferson reminds us that liberty is not usually lost all at once. It yields gradually, policy by policy, program by program, until the proper balance between citizens and government begins to shift. 

A free society depends on remembering that government exists to protect rights, not to replace personal responsibility, local decision-making, or civil society. That is why limited government is not merely a slogan. It is a discipline. It requires lawmakers and citizens alike to ask whether each new exercise of power is truly necessary—and whether it leaves people, in the end, stronger, safer and more self-governing as a people.