The Potentially Unamendable State Constitutional Core
![handle is hein.journals/arklr69 and id is 339 raw text is:
The Potentially Unamendable State
Constitutional Core
Lawrence Friedman-
One of the first cases my state constitutional law
students encounter is Omaha National Bank v. Spire, in which
the Nebraska Supreme Court considered a challenge to an
initiative-created state constitutional amendment conce-
rning corporate ownership of real estate used for farming.'
The plaintiff argued, among other things, that the
amendment was itself unconstitutional, to which the court
responded: No part of the [state] Constitution... is
inviolable. To hold to the contrary would give absolute
finality to a portion of the Constitution and would thwart the
express will of the people when they retained the right to
amend their Constitution.2 Further, the court noted that it
was not the judiciary's role to tell the voters ... that
although the Constitution states that the people have
reserved the power to amend that Constitution, they may
only amend it in ways that [the court] determine[s]....3
Thus the court emphasized the inherent amendability of the
state constitution-a feature that comes as a surprise to
students who, in their course on the federal Constitution,
learn that one purpose of a constitution is to secure certain
values and interests from democratic abridgement. And
then I point out that no provision of the U.S. Constitution is
* Professor of Law, New England Law, Boston. I prepared this essay for the
symposium on State Constitutional Change, hosted by the Arkansas Law Review at
the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville on January 22, 2016. I'm
grateful to Jon Marshfield for the invitation to participate in the symposium; to
Richard Albert, whose scholarship has informed my thinking about state
constitutional amendment; to Bob Williams, who helped me work through the
arguments I explore in this essay; to my colleagues, Elizabeth Bloom, Vic Hansen, and
Jordy Singer, for their comments and suggestions; and to Amanda Palmeira, for her
excellent research assistance.
1. 389 N.W.2d 269, 271-72 (Neb. 1986).
2. Id. at 274.
3. Id. at 278.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/arklr69&div=27&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Potentially Unamendable State Constitutional Core
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