Getting from Here to There: Twenty-First Century Mechanisms and Opportunities in State Constitutional Reform Foreword 36 Rutgers Law Journal 2004-2005

36 Rutgers L.J. 1075 (2004-2005)
Getting from Here to There: Twenty-First Century Mechanisms and Opportunities in State Constitutional Reform

handle is hein.journals/rutlj36 and id is 1089 raw text is: FOREWORD: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE: TWENTY-
FIRST CENTURY MECHANISMS AND OPPORTUNITIES IN
STATE CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM+
G. Alan Tarr* & Robert F. Williams
I. INTRODUCTION
Formal constitutional change is easier at the state level than at the federal
level.' Article V of the United States Constitution offers only two
mechanisms for proposing constitutional amendments: proposal by two-
thirds majorities in both houses of Congress or proposal by a convention
specially called for that purpose.2 Amendments proposed via either
mechanism must win approval by three-quarters of the states, acting through
+ Research on this Foreword was underwritten by a grant from The Ford Foundation.
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Foundation's generous support.
* Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ;
Director, Center for State Constitutional Studies.
** Distinguished Professor of Law, Rutgers University School of Law, Camden, NJ;
Associate Director, Center for State Constitutional Studies.
I. Like virtually all generalizations about the American states, this one is true in most,
but not in all, instances. For example, Wisconsin has only one mechanism-proposal by the
state legislature-for initiating the amendment process. See WIS. CONST. art. XII, § I.
Not all constitutional change takes place through the formal mechanisms for change
prescribed by constitutions. Change can also occur informally, through changes in
constitutional interpretation, constitutional construction, or constitutional practice. For
pertinent discussions, see generally RESPONDING To IMPERFECTION: THE THEORY AND
PRACTICE OF CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT (Sanford Levinson ed., 1995), and KEITH
WHITTINGTON, CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRUCTION: DIVIDED POWERS AND CONSTITUTIONAL
MEANING (1999). Such informal change is particularly likely when the formal avenues of
change are difficult, but it has occurred at the state level as well. See Michael Besso,
Constitutional Amendment Procedures and the Informal Political Construction of
Constitutions, 67 J. POL. 69, 69-71 (2005); Christian G. Fritz, Popular Sovereignty,
Vigilantism, and the Constitutional Right of Revolution, 63 PAC. HIST. REv. 39, 42, 47-53
(1994). The focus of this Foreword, however, is exclusively on formal mechanisms of
constitutional change.
2. U.S. CONST. art. V. Akhil Amar has argued that formal constitutional change can
also be undertaken outside the requirements of Article V. See Akhil Reed Amar, Philadelphia
Revisited: Amending the Constitution Outside Article V, 55 U. CHI. L. REv. 1043, 1055-56
(1988). For a critique of Amar's position, see JOHN R. VILE, CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS
SURROUNDING THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDING PROCESS 97-125 (1993).

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