STATE CONSTITUTIONS AND U.S. CONSTITUTION

State Constitutions: How they vary from the U.S. Constitution and how they can sometimes help a state progress and other times, prevent its advancement?

State Constitutions: How they vary from the U.S. Constitution and how they can sometimes help a state progress and other times, prevent its advancement?

Many people converse about changing the Constitution, but changing the U.S. Constitution is (intentionally) no easy issue, and there have been only 27 amendments in more than 223 years. But legal change at the state grade is a different story.

The imminent decennial redistricting of the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures will take place primarily under state constitutions and state constitutional amendments are being proposed in a couple of states in a, expected failed, attempt to block federal healthcare and work regulation restructure measures. (Cheeseman, 2007)

Components of a State Constitution

The Seven Basic components of state constitution are:

1. Popular Sovereignty

2. Limited Government

3. Separation of Powers

4. Checks and Balances

5. Republicanism

6. Federalism

7. Individual Rights

When conversing about state constitutions, it is often tough to generalize. Many will seem a familiarity with some state constitutions because of likenesses with the federal Constitution. But there is much dissimilarity, as well. Here are four of them. State constitutions present different purposes (generally limit plenary forces rather than grant enumerated powers), have distinct origins (from the people themselves), and have a distinct (longer) form. State constitutions comprise many more policy-oriented provisions, constructed up over time, as well as provisions in relation to the feature, virtue and even morality of the state's people.

Reason for Detailed State Constitution

State constitutions better contemplate the input of the alternate voices of African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and women—voices that have had little influence on the federal Constitution. The dissimilarities can obscure one of the most basic aspects of state constitutions: the important influence that a number of them taken up before the federal Constitution, had on our national lawful charter. The mechanisms of revision, while there is but one, somewhat tough, way to amend the government Constitution, amendments or modifications of state constitutions can be accomplished through legislative, legal convention or legal commission proposals, as well as by initiative in some states. (McDonald, 2007)

In the U.S. Constitution, the framers took great care to list specifically the powers vested, by the people, in the national government. Article I of the Constitution enumerates to Congress, the legislative branch, eighteen separate clauses of authority, many with multiple power bases. The specific enumeration of these powers made clear that the authority of the federal government is limited.

Ways to get a Detailed Constitution

Usually, they are longer than the 7,500-word federal Constitution and are more comprehensive considering the day-to-day connections between government and the persons; the Vermont Constitution is 8,295 phrases long, while Alabama's sixth and most recent constitution, approved in 1901, is 357,157 phrases long. Both the government and state constitutions are organic texts: they are the basic proposals for the lawful and political organizations of the joined States and ...