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The following column is by the Municipal Affairs Liaison at the Goldwater Institute, Austin VanDerHeyden.
At first glance, not a whole lot jumps out about usually quiet town of Gilbert, Arizona. With a population of just under 300,000, a conservative mayor, and a reputation as one of the safest cities in the nation—it looks very much like your average well-to-do, center-right-leaning American suburb.
But operating in the shadows, unelected progressive bureaucrats have taken over the quiet town. Gilbert’s “Office of Big Brother” (officially known as the Office of Digital Government), which costs taxpayers more than $1 million a year just in salaries alone, is weaponizing the power of the government to spy on the online speech of town employees and elected officials. Their mission: to enforce conformity with a progressive political agenda. As an investigative report from the Goldwater Institute, where I work, reveals, it’s an arrangement unlike any other we’ve seen around the country.
At least, so far. Because if it can happen in sleepy Gilbert, it can happen in your town, city, or county too.
The Office of Digital Government does far more than just run all online government communications; its employees tightly control Gilbert's digital narrative, spending untold hours hunting down employees' personal social media for non-conforming views about things like politics and first responders and then turning them in.
What counts as “non-conforming”?
“When I worked there, they were pushing the chiefs of police and fire to be more liberal. Then there’s those emails about how excited they were about getting the chief to kneel to BLM,” one former town employee said in the report.
In one instance, an Office of Digital Government worker flagged a town employee’s personal Instagram story because it “could be deemed culturally insensitive”—and ensured that employee’s superiors were informed.
In yet another, the agency’s head complained to the Gilbert Fire Department leadership about a fire truck that had turned on its sirens in support as it drove next to a crowd of “Back the Blue” protesters.
Put simply, the Office of Digital Government allows one type of speech, and will silence anyone who does not fall in line with their progressive agenda.
That’s not all. In addition to spying on individual employees, the agency has taken away every town agency’s ability to control their own social media pages. Instead, each department must first seek permission from the Office of Digital Government to post a message to the community. In other words, every piece of information sent out from the town must first go through a government agency that makes little secret of its distaste for conservatives.
In fact, until this week, the office was led by Dana Berchman, a former Hillary Clinton intern and an outspoken progressive activist. Berchman’s social media is full of progressive rants supporting causes including Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ ideologies, and President Joe Biden. Berchman—who raked in $200,800 a year, which is more than the mayor and town council earn combined—has also shared posts blaming parents for school shutdowns over COVID-19 case spikes.
Gilbert residents pride themselves on being a conservative suburb outside of the far more liberal Phoenix. So it’s no wonder that at recent town council meetings, citizens were appalled that their tax dollars are being abused by unelected progressive bureaucrats. As one citizen said: “this is something you would expect out of Phoenix, not Gilbert.”
But if this can happen in Gilbert, just imagine what takes place in cities like Los Angeles, New York City, or any other town in America, for that matter. Local government is supposed to be the safest and most easily accessible form of government. However, that also means local government has a larger impact on a community’s day-to-day operations, and when unelected bureaucrats wield their power to push a progressive narrative, no matter the cost, these are the consequences.
Leftist activists have proven that they can take over and run the government, even if they have never received a vote or permission to do so. Take it from someone who lives in Arizona: if this can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
Austin VanDerHeyden is the Municipal Affairs Liaison at the Goldwater Institute.