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New publications on state public law focus on topics ranging from constitutional conventions to criminal sentencing published in the latter part of 2023.

A new resource from the State Democracy Research Initiative makes the current text of all 50 state constitutions available and searchable on one site.

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.

This Essay explores the people’s right to amend state constitutions, particularly in states that recognize the constitutional initiative. Together with other democratic rights that appear in state constitutions but not the federal charter, the right to amend recognizes popular sovereignty as an active commitment. After describing the right to amend and canvassing current threats, the Essay considers practical and theoretical implications. It argues that democratic proportionality review can help courts distinguish valid regulation of the initiative process from subversion of it. And it explores the distinctive constitutional architecture to which popular amendment contributes.

We argue for "democratic proportionality review" as a state-centered approach to adjudication. Such review tailors proportionality’s decisional framework to state constitutions committed to popular, majoritarian self-government, and it recognizes state courts themselves as democratically embedded actors, not countermajoritarian interlopers.

North Carolina spent much of the year in the national legal spotlight due to Moore v. Harper, the prominent U.S. Supreme Court case that could limit the authority of state courts and state constitutions over federal elections through the controversial “independent state legislature theory.”

Should state courts apply prevailing federal methodologies? Or, alternatively, does the state context call for different approaches? This Special Issue explores these questions, as well as different ways of thinking about interpretation and the role of state courts more broadly.

This episode takes a dive into state courts and state constitutions. To get the lay of the land and identify the challenges ahead, they welcome four guests: Miriam Seifter of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jessica Bulman-Pozen of Columbia Law School, Daniel Nichanian of Bolts, and Alicia Bannon of the Brennan Center.

When it comes to current efforts to strip or distort the people’s ability to choose their government, state courts have both the authority and the duty to act.