Our Work

Every campaign season brings renewed attention to the amount of money influencing American politics, and who is spending it, and for what purposes. In particular, people are concerned about what is called “dark money.” The term sounds scary and raises the specter of shadowy people manipulating the nation’s politics. This piece unpacks what dark money is, what concerns it raises and what might be done to address it.

In roughly half of U.S. states, state constitutions confer rights of direct democracy, allowing the people to make law directly through statutes or constitutional amendments. The exercise of direct democracy rights can lead to power struggles with state legislatures. In particular, state legislatures sometimes respond to successful ballot measures by passing new laws that make ballot measures harder to use. Disputes over these new burdens on direct democracy frequently land in state courts. This Report considers how state courts have responded to these power struggles, with special attention to case law analyzing process-altering legislation under state constitutional direct democracy rights.

This report analyzes an often-overlooked set of state entities that hold substantial power: judicial conduct commissions. These entities, which exist in every state, are primarily designed to protect the public from judicial misconduct and have broad authority to investigate and sanction state judges. As state courts gain increasing attention, the public and scholars should likewise attend to the entities that oversee them.

"As President Joe Biden and Donald Trump step up their campaigning in swing states, a quieter battle is taking place in the shadows of their White House rematch. The Republican National Committee, newly reconstituted under Trump, has filed election-related lawsuits in nearly half the states. Recent lawsuits over voter roll maintenance in Michigan and Nevada are part of a larger strategy targeting various aspects of voting and election administration."

The U.S. constitution is quite difficult to change — however, state constitutions are relatively easy…to the extent that 70 state constitution amendments were passed in 2022. Emily Lau, Staff Attorney fort he University of Wisconsin’s State Democracy Research Initiative talks about these “living” documents and the efforts that this non-partisan group is making to make the fifty state constitutions available, and searchable at 50constitutions.org

This Report surveys current state laws affecting direct democracy, with an emphasis on those relating to voter participation and understanding. For instance, what information appears on the ballot, and who prepares it? What standards exist, if any, to ensure that ballot language is clear and impartial? When, and how, can courts step in?

State-level administrative agencies, like their federal counterparts, play a significant role in governance across the nation. Their responsibilities run the gamut—from elections to education; from public waterways to public health; from property to prisons; from taxis to taxes. Many state legislatures, for their part, have sought to retain checks on agencies’ regulatory authority beyond the ordinary legislative and oversight processes via a "legislative veto."

This Report surveys and classifies the standards that state courts around the country use to adjudicate state constitutional challenges to restrictive voting laws. This survey found that a majority of states apply a standard more rigorous than federal Anderson-Burdick review.

State constitutions reflect a powerful commitment to democracy. This website highlights state constitutional provisions across the nation that contribute to the democracy principle.

Explore the full, up-to-date text of each of the 50 state constitutions. Search within and across states, and use the “Tracking Constitutional Change” feature to see how each state’s constitution has evolved over time.