The Volokh Conspiracy
Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
State Constitution Tool
A great free resource for lawyers, judges, academics, and students doing cross-state constitutional law research.
Check it out, at https://stateconstitutiontool.org (from American Juris Link); the site lets you easily find state constitutional provisions related to a particular topic, and then compare them.
Thus, for instance, say you're writing about a state constitutional right to bear arms, free speech, open government, privacy, etc. You can select that option, and then either select "all states" or some set of states in which you're interested. That will then show you those provisions in all state constitutions, and let you compare them further, or search their text for particular keywords.
Each state, of course, has its own constitution, and many provide more rights than the federal Constitution does (or provide the same rights but with different, and potentially more capacious, language). They also have very different sorts of non-rights provisions, for instance statutory single-subject rules, prohibitions on certain kinds of special laws, and more.
The Tool is focused on text; users will still need to do their own caselaw research about how various textual provisions have been interpreted. But the text is the first place to start (among other things because it can help show which other state provisions are similarly written, and can thus help guide the user's followup research). And though it was just released very recently, it has already been cited in an Alabama Supreme Court concurrence:
The problems associated with lockstepping [i.e., interpreting a state constitutional provision in lockstep with its federal analog -EV] are magnified in instances in which the text of the State constitutional provision differs substantially from that of the federal constitutional provision. Here, Alabama's Due Process Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause have little in common except for the phrase "due process of law." Compare Ala. Const. 2022, art. I, § 13 ("[E]very person, for any injury done him, in his lands, goods, person, or reputation, shall have a remedy by due process of law; and right and justice shall be administered without sale, denial, or delay.") with U.S. Const. amend. 14, § 1 ("No State shall … deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.").14 It would be unusual for two provisions that are worded so differently to have an identical meaning and application in all cases.
14For a useful tool to compare state and federal constitutional provisions, see Am. Juris Link State Const. Tool, which, at the time of this decision, could be located at: https://stateconstitutiontool.org.
Much worth checking out.
