Our Work

Developed by two of the subject’s leading experts, the First Edition of State Constitutional Law: Cases and Principles provides a contemporary, authoritative treatment of the field, complete with majority approaches and alternatives across the country. The book provides detailed treatments of the wide range of state constitutional issues—not only rights, but also government structure, democracy, fiscal provisions, and intrastate relations.

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.

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.

Among the threats to American democracy, the most serious may also be the most banal: that future elections will be compromised by quiet changes to the law. State legislators across the country have passed bills that give them power to reject the will of voters. This essay describes why state courts are well situated to counter the new election subversion.

In recent years, antidemocratic behavior has rippled across the nation. Lame-duck state legislatures have stripped popularly elected governors of their powers; extreme partisan gerrymanders have warped representative institutions; state officials have nullified popularly adopted initiatives. The federal constitution offers few resources to address these problems, and ballot-box solutions cannot work when antidemocratic actions undermine elections themselves. This Article argues that a vital response has been neglected: state constitutions.