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Does the Ohio Constitution allow the General Assembly to override the will of the people? The Essay situates Ohio within the broader national landscape, surveys how other states address legislative overrides of citizen-initiated statutes, and develops an interpretive framework grounded in the Ohio Constitution.

Following the 2024 election, we updated our survey of election-related lawsuits to help understand the role of litigation in our elections. This update underscores key themes from our survey of litigation from 2018 to 2022: litigants continue to file election suits at high rates, primarily in state courts, and most often presenting claims related to election administration and the mechanics of voting.

A roundup of state public law scholarship published in the fall of 2024.

There has been growing public interest in the potential of state courts and constitutions to provide greater protections to people within their borders than what’s offered under the federal Constitution. In 2024, multiple high-profile cases wound through state judiciaries, addressing reproductive rights, democracy, criminal justice, and much more.

Little-known state judicial conduct commissions play a key role in investigating judicial misconduct. These often-overlooked bodies exist in every state and typically include judges, attorneys and other members of the public. Their job is to investigate complaints and hold judges accountable for misconduct. But what happens when politicians use these commissions to target judges they disagree with or seek favorable outcomes in court? We’re starting to find out.

"When Songgu Kwon went to the polls earlier this month, he was eager to help Ohio adopt an independent redistricting commission. The comic book writer and illustrator, who lives near Athens, dislikes the process with which politicians have carved up Ohio into congressional and legislative districts that favor them, enabling Republicans to lock in large majorities. So he was pleased that voting rights groups had placed Issue 1, a proposal meant to create fairer maps, on the Ohio ballot this fall."

Ahead of Election Day 2024, courts—and especially state courts—continue to be inundated with election-related lawsuits. As in 2020, courts may see a deluge of post-election litigation as well. A recurring question in these pre- and post-election cases is whether the plaintiffs waited too long to sue. Under the longstanding equitable doctrine of “laches,” courts sometimes reject claims as untimely even when plaintiffs satisfy the applicable statute of limitations if, in fairness, the claims should have been brought sooner. This Research Note offers a 50-state survey of laches doctrine in the election context.

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.

Every 10 years, following the federal census, states are required to redraw their congressional and legislative district maps. In the majority of states, the duty to redistrict rests with the state legislature. Because line-drawing decisions can have significant electoral consequences, the redistricting process is often highly contentious. An especially prominent concern is with partisan gerrymandering—that is, the adoption of maps that unduly advantage one political party over another. This report assesses the rise of state court litigation as one important tool for curbing partisan gerrymandering and provides a state-by-state analysis of the viability of state partisan gerrymandering claims.