State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 1 The Politics of State Constitutional Reform State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 2 Drafting State Constitutions, Revisions, and Amendments State Constitutions for the Twenty-first Century, Volume 3 The Agenda of State Constitutional Reform

This third and final volume in a series devoted to state constitutions analyzes how these documents address major constitutional issues such as the protection of rights; voting and elections; constitutional change; the legislature; the executive; the judiciary; taxing, spending, and borrowing; local government; education; and the environment. Contributors identify the strengths and weaknesses of current state constitutions, highlight the major issues confronting the states, and assess various approaches for reform.

Nationally recognized experts analyze how states deal with major constitutional issues.

Constitutional reform requires not only good ideas but also the ability to translate those ideas into language that will effectuate the drafters' aims. This book—the second of three volumes on state constitutions—is the essential guide for those involved in constitutional reform. It identifies the recurrent problems that reformers face in drafting or amending state constitutions and explores how those problems might be addressed. It also explains why drafting state constitutions is a distinctive enterprise, different from the drafting of other legal documents.

The first systematic analysis of the obstacles to state constitutional reform.

Nationally recognized experts analyze how states deal with major constitutional issues.

The first systematic analysis of the obstacles to state constitutional reform.

The Law of American State Constitutions provides complete coverage of the legal doctrines surrounding, applying to, and arising from American state constitutions and their judicial interpretation. Using specific examples, Professor Williams provides legal analysis of the nature and function of state constitutions by contrast to the federal Constitution, including rights, separation of powers, policy-based provisions, the judicial interpretation issues that arise under state constitutions and the processes for their amendment and revision. Reference is made to history and political theory, but legal analysis is the primary focus. The Law of American State Constitutions provides an important analytical tool that explains the unique character and the range of judicial interpretation of these constitutions, together with the specialized techniques of argument and interpretation surrounding state constitutions. This is the first book to present a complete picture of the current body of state constitutional law and its judicial interpretation.

This new case book addresses the constitutions of the 50 States. It is designed for a survey course, one that does not purport to cover every State's constitution in detail. Rather, like a traditional contracts, real property or torts textbook, it uses the most interesting state court decisions from around the country to illustrate the astonishing array of state constitutional issues at play in modern American law. The method of presentation emphasizes the function of state constitutions in our federal system. It sometimes does so by explaining how the U.S. Constitution deals with an issue before discussing how the state constitutions handle it, and it sometimes does so by explaining how the state constitutions contain provisions that have no parallel in the U.S. Constitution. A central theme of the book, explored in a variety of areas, is that state constitutions provide a source of rights independent of the Federal Constitution, and state courts frequently construe these provisions to grant more expansive protection for individual rights than the Federal Constitution provides. As the reader will see, the state courts' expansion of liberty and property rights under their constitutions stems from a variety of factors: differences in the text between the state and federal constitutional provisions, the smaller size of the state courts' jurisdiction, state constitutional history, unique state traditions and disagreement with the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of similar language. State constitutional law, like its federal counterpart, is not limited to individual rights. The book also explores the organization and structure of state and local governments, the method of choosing state judges, the ease with which most state constitutions can be amended, taxation, public finance and school funding. As the nightly news confirms, it is no exaggeration to say that many of the most ground-breaking constitutional debates of the day are being aired in the state courts under their own constitutions. The mission of this book is to introduce students to this increasingly significant body of American law and to prepare them to practice effectively in it.