Part V State Constitutional Amendment and Revision, 13 Amending and Revising State Constitutions

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Williams Robert F
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
State Constitution ◽  
Legislative Proposal ◽  
Initiative Process ◽  
Constitutional Conventions

This chapter discusses the variety of mechanisms available to propose changes to state constitutions. Amendments or revisions of state constitutions can be accomplished through legislative proposal, constitutional convention proposal, constitutional commission proposal, and the initiative in states that permit it. In all states other than Delaware, the electors must approve changes to the state constitution. The chapter reviews the use of limited state constitutional conventions, and constitutional commissions. Constitutional revision processes in a variety of states during the 20th century are discussed, together with general lessons that can be derived from those experiences. The chapter describes difficulties faced in modern times with state constitutional amendment and revision, including popular distrust of constitutional conventions and other constitution-making processes. Several proposed improvements to the initiative process for state constitutional change also discussed.

Part V State Constitutional Amendment and Revision, 14 Judicial Involvement in State Constitutional Amendment and Revision

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Williams Robert F
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Single Subject ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Processes Of Change ◽  
Federal Level ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
State Constitution ◽  
Generally True

This chapter discusses the extensive judicial involvement in litigation considering the substance and procedure of state constitutional amendment and revision. Some processes of state constitutional change can only be utilized, for example, to amend the state constitution but not to revise it. This is generally true for the initiative. Litigation therefore arises over whether an initiated change is a valid amendment or an invalid revision. Also, state constitutions contain a number of procedural requirements and limitations on the processes for their change, such as single-subject and separate-vote requirements. These procedural restrictions are enforced by the courts through litigation. This level of judicial involvement in the processes of state constitutional change is unlike that at the federal level, for change does not occur very often and challenges to the federal processes of change are generally viewed as non-justiciable political questions.

scholarly journals Irlanda : reforma constitucional versus convención constitucional : análisis del déjà vu de Irlanda desde la perspectiva de la reforma constituciónal española

2012 ◽  
pp. 411
Author(s):  
Esther Villadangos Seijas
Keyword(s):  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
Political System ◽  
Debt Crisis ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
The Public ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Regulatory Systems ◽  
Full Force

El presente artículo se centra en el estudio de la gestación de la crisis económica en Irlanda y en el análisis de las respuestas constitucionales a la misma. En primer lugar se analiza el papel de la reforma constitucional, estudiando el mecanismo diseñado en los arts. 46 y 47 de la Constitución. El carácter preceptivo del referéndum ha reforzado la implicación social en un total de 23 reformas aprobadas hasta la fecha. De especial trascendencia, como reacciones constitucionales ante el contexto de crisis, podemos destacar la reforma de 2011 relativa a la reducción del salario de los jueces y la afrontada en 2012, como consecuencia de la ratificación del Tratado de Estabilidad. Un segundo contenido de este trabajo expone una «relativa» novedad en el panorama constitucional, la de la Convención Constitucional. Concebida como un órgano deliberativo y participativo, estamos ante un mecanismo que trata de paliar una común demanda de las democracias actuales de fomentar la participación social como complemento a las limitaciones de los cauces parlamentarios tradicionales, subyugados a demasiadas lealtades, partidistas, endogámicas que impiden el ejercicio de sus funcione de canalización de la voluntad popular en el seguimiento de los asuntos públicos.This article focusses on Irish answers to the economic crisis. The full force of the sovereign debt crisis has been affected Ireland from 2008. The failures in the policy-making and regulatory systems have caused a critical eye on traditional ways of doing business in the political system and the public service. The paths that Ireland has followed are two. First, the constitutional amendment mechanism. It pays attention to constitutional precepts that ruler this constitutional reform, mainly articles 46 and 47. The referendum has developed a key element in this system. Ireland has developed 23 constitutional reforms nowadays. The second important element is a Constitutional Convention. This body will allow a group of randomly selected citizens to deliberate and make recommendations upon a number of areas of political reform. Many of the changes envisaged offers an space for reflection about the viability of a macro political and constitutional change strategy that the bailout require.

Part I State Constitutions in American Constitutional Federalism, 2 The Pre-federal State Constitutions: The Founding Decade

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Williams Robert F
Keyword(s):  
Federal State ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
State Constitution ◽  
Federal Constitution ◽  
Federal Constitutional ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
Second Wave ◽  
The Way ◽  
Constitution Making

Most of the American states adopted constitutions in the decade prior to the federal constitutional convention. There were two major “waves” of state constitution-making. The first wave was hasty, generally not based on elected constitutional conventions, and the constitutions had little in the way of checks and balances. The chapter uses the Pennsylvania constitution to illustrate this wave. The second wave was more deliberate, often utilized elected constitutional conventions, and developed constitutions with more in the way of checks and balances. The Massachusetts constitution is used to illustrate this wave. Early constitution-making in each of the states is briefly reviewed, in light of these differing philosophies. Finally, the chapter reviews the influences of this “founding decade” of state constitution-making on the development of the federal Constitution, concluding that the Pennsylvania example was rejected and in Massachusetts example was adopted.

scholarly journals Constitutional Amendment by Stealth

2015 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 673-736 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Albert
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
The Government ◽  
Institutional Actors ◽  
Distinguishing Features

Constitutional amendment ordinarily channels public deliberation through formal, transparent, and predictable procedures designed to express the informed aggregated choices of political, popular, and institutional actors. Yet the Government of Canada’s proposed senator selection reforms concealed a democratically problematic strategy to innovate an informal, obscure, and irregular method of constitutional change: constitutional amendment by stealth. There are three distinguishing features of constitutional amendment by stealth—distinctions that make stealth amendment stand apart from other types of informal constitutional change: the circumvention of formal amendment rules, the intentional creation of a convention, and the twinned consequences of both promoting and weakening democracy. Constitutional amendment by stealth occurs where political actors consciously establish a new democratic practice whose repetition is intended to compel their successors into compliance. Over time, this practice matures into an unwritten constitutional convention, and consequently becomes informally entrenched in the constitution, though without the democratic legitimacy we commonly associate with an amendment. In this article, I theorize constitutional amendment by stealth from legal, theoretical, and comparative perspectives, and consider its consequences for the rule of law.

scholarly journals Living Constitution in Indonesia: The Study of Constitutional Changes Without A Formal Amendment

Lentera Hukum ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 69
Author(s):  
Muhammad Addi Fauzani ◽  
Nur Aqmarina Deladetama ◽  
Muhammad Basrun ◽  
Muhammad Khoirul Anam
Keyword(s):  
House Of Representatives ◽  
The State ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Political Will ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
State Institutions ◽  
The Government ◽  
Constitutional Changes

The discussion regarding the living constitution in Indonesia has been increasingly important. The importance of this discussion deals with to the extent it has developed, particularly after Indonesia's constitutional amendment from 1999 to 2002. The current study of constitutional change in Indonesia, as a result of the constitutional amendment during Reformation, adds an emphasis on its change without a formal amendment. Thus, this paper will discuss the urgency of enforcing the amended 1945 Constitution in the lens of the living constitution and how to uphold it through the living constitution. This study uses doctrinal research and, in examining the case, it uses the statutory and conceptual approaches. The result of the study shows that the urgency of upholding the constitution through the living constitution relies on the concept of the living constitution that can dynamize the 1945 Constitution. In response to difficulties to formally amend the 1945 Constitution that depends on political will and rigid juridical condition, there should be a shift in the method of interpretation of the constitution by the Constitutional Court judges, from originalism to the living constitution. The enforcement of the 1945 Constitution through the living constitution can apply the constitutional convention and the interpretation by constitutional judges. This study suggests that the Government and the House of Representatives and other relevant state institutions can use the living constitution, by taking into account the constitutional convention is a source in the organization of the state to patch up the weaknesses of the constitution. Keywords: Living Constitution, Constitutional Changes, Formal Amendment.

Unconventional Politics: The Campaign for a Balanced-Budget Amendment Constitutional Convention in the 1970s

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 421-445 ◽  
Author(s):  
IWAN MORGAN
Keyword(s):  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Constitutional Change ◽  
Fiscal Discipline ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
Founding Fathers ◽  
The People ◽  
The Face ◽  
History Of ◽  
Balanced Budget

The drive to enact a constitutional amendment requiring balanced federal budgets has been a defining issue of American politics in the final decade of the twentieth century. Supporters of this measure deemed it the only way to break the cycle of huge deficits that inflated the national debt to almost unmanageable proportions in recent years. In 1995, 1996 and 1997 only the Senate's narrow failure to deliver the requisite two-thirds majority – latterly by a single vote – prevented Congress proposing an amendment for ratification by the states. Nevertheless the balanced-budget amendment campaign is not a product of the deficit-conscious 1990s. It originated in the 1970s as a movement by the states to impose fiscal discipline on the federal government. Between 1975 and 1979 thirty states petitioned Congress for a convention to write a balanced-budget amendment. The convention method of constitutional reform had lain unused since the Founding Fathers devised it as an alternative to congressional initiative, but the support of only four more states would have provided the two-thirds majority needed for its implementation. The states' campaign stalled at this juncture in the face of opposition from the Carter administration and congressional Democrats. By then, however, it had done much to popularize the balanced-budget amendment and make it part of the nation's political agenda.This article seeks to analyze the development of the balanced-budget amendment constitutional convention campaign and to assess its historical significance. Aside from its relevance to today's fiscal politics, the movement merits attention as an important episode in the history of the 1970s, an era when economic problems at home and defeat abroad underlined the limits of America's prosperity and power. In this troubled time, popular confidence in the nation's political leaders underwent marked decline. The Watergate scandal, failure in Vietnam and economic stagflation created doubts about their trustworthiness and competence to deal with America's problems. The budget revolt by the states was a manifestation of this anti-Washington mood. In style as well as substance, the campaign challenged conventional politics: it manifested distrust in elected leaders to manage public finances without constitutional restraint and sought to bypass establishment control of the orthodox forms of politics through adoption of an untested process of constitutional change. In many respects the drive for a balanced-budget amendment convention was an expression of the same populist impulse that was the mainspring of Jimmy Carter's campaign for president in 1976. The former Georgia governor's status as a political outsider untainted by previous connection with Washington had been his greatest electoral asset, but in office this man-of-the-people aligned himself with the nation's political establishment against the convention campaign. Analysis of Carter's response to this movement casts light on the ambiguity and complexity of his presidential politics.

Constitutional Law, 1780s

2018 ◽  
pp. 98-119
Author(s):  
John B. Nann ◽  
Morris L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Constitutional Convention ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Continental Congress ◽  
American Law ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
The U.S

This chapter discusses sources for information about the United States and state constitutions; constitutional conventions, especially the Constitutional Convention of 1787; the ratification of the U.S. Constitution; and the ratification of the Bill of Rights and other amendments. Although the Constitution of the United States is extremely important to American law and legal history, researchers should keep in mind that it is not the only constitution in play, nor was it the first. Even before the Declaration of Independence was promulgated on July 4, 1776, states had begun to work on their own constitutions. Meanwhile, sources of information about the Constitutional Convention of 1787 include materials about the Continental Congress. While comparatively little material is available from the actual constitutional convention, a great deal of information from the process of the Constitution's ratification exists.

EXPLORING THE INTERNAL STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE ORGANIZATION

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-78
Author(s):  
Venelin Terziev ◽  
Marin Georgiev
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Structural Changes ◽  
Cumulative Effect ◽  
Professional Culture ◽  
Social Revolution ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Scientific Technical ◽  
The Subject

The subject of this article is the genesis of the professional culture of personnel management. The last decades of the 20th century were marked by various revolutions - scientific, technical, democratic, informational, sexual, etc. Their cumulative effect has been mostly reflected in the professional revolution that shapes the professional society around the world. This social revolution has global consequences. In addition to its extensive parameters, it also has intensive ones related to the deeply-rooted structural changes in the ways of working and thinking, as well as in the forms of its social organization. The professional revolutions in the history of Modern Times stem from this theory.Employees’ awareness and accountability shall be strengthened. The leader must be able to formulate and bring closer to the employees the vision of the organization and its future goal, to which all shall aspire. He should pay attention not to the "letter" but to the "spirit" of this approach.

Don’t You be My Neighbor: Support for Racial-Exclusion Constitutional Provisions in Mid-19th Century Indiana and Illinois

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110153
Author(s):  
Jac C. Heckelman ◽  
John Dinan
Keyword(s):  
Social Welfare ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Welfare Policy ◽  
Social Welfare Policy ◽  
Racial Threat ◽  
Southern State ◽  
State Constitutions ◽  
Racial Exclusion ◽  
Constitutional Conventions ◽  
Levels Of Support

Racially discriminatory provisions in the U.S. Constitution and southern state constitutions have been extensively analyzed, but insufficient attention has been brought to these provisions when included in northern state constitutions. We examine constitutional provisions excluding blacks from entering the state that were adopted by various northern states in the mid-19th Century. Previous scholarship has focused on the statements and votes of the convention delegates who framed these provisions. However, positions taken by delegates need not have aligned with the views of their constituents. Delegates to state constitutional conventions held in Illinois in 1847, Indiana in 1850 and 1851, and Oregon in 1857 opted to submit to voters racial-exclusion provisions separate from the vote to approve the rest of the constitution. We exploit this institutional feature by using county-level election returns in Illinois and Indiana to test claims about the importance of partisan affiliation, religious denomination, social-welfare policy concerns, labor competition, and racial-threat theory in motivating popular support for entrenching racially discriminatory policies in constitutions. We find greater levels of support for racial exclusion in areas where Democratic candidates polled better and in areas closer to slave-holding states where social-welfare policy concerns would be heightened. We find lower levels of support for racial exclusion in areas (in Indiana) with greater concentrations of Quakers. Our findings are not consistent with labor competition or racial-threat theories.

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