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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.

National-level developments in law and government typically grab the biggest headlines and drive discourse in the legal academy. With a high-stakes presidential election, major U.S. Supreme Court rulings, and more, 2024 has been no exception. But many consequential legal developments have unfolded at the state level as well. The Essays in this Special Issue explore questions pertaining to state public law, including examining distinctive features of state governance and the relationship between states and the federal government.

"A lawsuit that could determine whether Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe can keep her job is coming before the state Supreme Court on Monday. The case focuses on the legality of appointees staying on after their terms expire, rather than any matter of her performance as the state’s top election official."

"Five years ago, Meagan Wolfe took over a new but already embattled role: leader of Wisconsin's elections commission. She was chosen as a steady hand to take over the agency after Republicans who control the state Legislature pushed out its first chief, who had become a symbol of intense partisan controversy. Now, Wolfe finds herself in the same spot: facing the loss of her nonpartisan job to partisan politics."

"Maneuvering over the future of the current state elections administrator has ratcheted up in the Capitol as the state Senate’s Republican leader is vowing to move ahead with confirmation hearings and a vote on a nomination that Democrats argue doesn’t exist. On Tuesday, the three Republicans on the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) voted to nominate Meagan Wolfe for another four-year term as the commission’s administrator, effective July 1. Without a majority of the six-member commission, however, the nomination failed."

Although states sit at the heart of the American democratic system, academic and popular discourse often overlook state-level public law. The lion’s share of attention, instead, goes to the federal government. In this Special Issue, the states take center stage. The essays in this collection explore issues relating to subnational democracy, government, and institutions. These essays were first presented at a conference entitled “Public Law in the States,” which took place in June 2021. The conference was the inaugural academic convening of the new State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School. Like this Special Issue, the Initiative aims to contribute to the vitality of democracy at the state level through research and learning focused on the states.

"One year ago, America’s governors were having a moment. Covid-19 cases were rising, federal leadership was absent and much of the responsibility for fighting the pandemic fell on their shoulders."

Conflicts about the independence of executive-branch officials are brewing across the states. At the federal level, scholars have long analyzed the meaning and effects of agency independence—a dialogue that has deepened under the Trump Administration. In contrast, there is virtually no systematic scholarly attention to the theory or practice of agency independence in the states. This Article begins that study. Surveying historical developments, judicial decisions, and legislative enactments across the country, it shows that state agency independence is an inexact, unstable, and variegated concept.

Scholarship on the administrative process has scarcely attended to the role that states play in federal regulation. This Article argues that it is time for that to change. An emerging, important new strand of federalism scholarship, known as “administrative federalism,” now seeks to safeguard state interests in the administrative process and argues that federal agencies should consider state input when developing regulations. These ideas appear to be gaining traction in practice. States now possess privileged access to agency decisionmaking processes through a variety of formal and informal channels. And some courts have signaled support for the idea of a special state role in federal agency decisionmaking.

A rising tide in federalism scholarship and political discourse accords unmitigated praise to the notion of partnership between states and federal agencies. This Article reveals a more complicated picture. It begins by analyzing the penetrating but usually invisible role of “state interest groups” — lobbying associations of state officials — in shaping federal regulation. These groups have become the core vehicle for state involvement in federal administration, but surprisingly, their pervasive and critical role is rarely noted in the legal literature.