State Constitutional Resources We Love

State courts have an enormous impact on the lives of people throughout the country, shaping everything from individual rights to the very framework of state government. But state courts and constitutions are notoriously understudied; surveys show that more than half of Americans don’t even know if their state has its own constitution.

We collected a few of our favorite resources demystifying state courts and constitutions, full of information useful to state constitutional novices, pros, and everyone in between. These tools include interactive maps, databases, and in-depth reports on state judicial decisions, biographies of state justices, and much more. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you know of an essential resource we missed.

50 Constitutions

“State constitutions are distinct documents,” writes Emily Lau of the State Democracy Research Initiative, “and it behooves scholars and litigants to engage with the unique features and histories of state constitutions.” But in many states these documents have long been inaccessible, especially compared to their federal counterpart. 

Enter the State Democracy Research Initiative’s 50 Constitutions, a searchable resource that allows users to track the evolution of each constitution, including amendments and major structural changes. It also highlights “how states have borrowed and learned from each other and, in some cases, inherited a shared constitutional history,” Lau explains.

Scorecard for State Supreme Court Transparency

“It is imperative that the public have meaningful access to pending cases in state high courts,” writes Julie Murray and Bridget Lavender of the American Civil Liberties Union’s State Supreme Court Initiative. Without access to information about these cases, community groups can’t file amicus briefs educating courts about the implications of their decisions, journalists can’t effectively educate the public about high-stakes litigation, and voters can’t fully understand justices’ views in states where members of the high court are elected. But not all state judiciaries allow easy access to briefs, dockets, and questions courts are considering.

The ACLU assessed how well state high courts adhered to four key practices — “posting new cases online in a timely manner, providing timely information about legal issues presented by cases, making dockets accessible and free for the public, and making merits briefing accessible and free for the public.” It then assigned tiers to each state and the District of Columbia, creating a scorecard and an interactive map. You can view the full results here. 

State Constitutions and Abortion Rights/Sex Discrimination

After the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion in 2022, litigation over the scope of state constitutional abortion rights picked up speed. State courts have issued dozens of abortion-related decisions in the years since.

“It can be hard to keep up,” writes Amy Myrick of the Center for Reproductive Rights. The center developed an interactive map “to help capture this complex and shifting landscape.” The center’s tool charts how state supreme courts have addressed questions related to reproductive rights, highlights varying interpretations of constitutional provisions, and offers a comparative view of the scope of protections across different state courts.

The center also created a similar resource to catalog how different jurisdictions tackle sex discrimination claims under their state constitutions, presenting key cases, outlining distinct judicial interpretations, and comparing protections offered in each state.

Democracy Principal Project

“State constitutions offer vital resources to combat antidemocratic action,” write professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and Miriam Seifter. “In text, structure, and history alike, they privilege popular sovereignty, majority rule, and political equality.” In other words, they write, “state constitutions share a commitment to a democracy principle,"

The Democracy Principle, a project of the State Democracy Research Initiative, offers an in-depth look at democracy-promoting provisions in every state’s constitution. Users can explore the site by state or by category — including popular sovereignty, suffrage, political equality, government institutions, direct democracy, and constitutional change. The resource also displays featured cases for each category.

50 Shades of Government Immunity

“State courts once stood ready and willing to vindicate rights,” an Institute for Justice report maintains, “but today most of them no longer do.”

The 2022 report, 50 Shades of Government Immunity, examines the ease of bringing civil rights claims under state law across the country. The researchers found that only a handful of state legislatures have passed laws authorizing a remedy for violations of civil rights and that just sixteen high courts have ruled that the state constitution itself provides a remedy for violations, regardless of any statute. They also found that “while most states allow for limited tort claims against government officials, they are riddled with exceptions and immunities, which makes it extremely difficult for victims of government abuse to prevail.”

The study gave each state a grade for constitutional accountability, ranging from an A- for New Mexico to an F for multiple states, including Alabama, Delaware, Mississippi, and South Carolina.

State Justices Database

“Understanding how state supreme courts work and wield power means understanding who serves on them,” writes Kyle C. Barry of the State Law Research Initiative. “Not just on a state-by-state basis, but also through national trends and the ways in which state high courts differ from each other.”

Thanks to an interactive tool from the State Law Research Initiative, members of the public can learn about all 350 state high court justices. The searchable database contains a separate page for each justice and state and allows users to sort justices by a variety of factors, including state, professional experience, race, gender, and party affiliation.

State Supreme Court Diversity Report 

“Despite an increasingly diverse U.S. population, state supreme courts across the country fail to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve,” the Brennan Center’s 2024 State Supreme Court Diversity Report concludes.

According to the report, people of color make up over 40 percent of the U.S. population but hold only 20 percent of state supreme court seats. In 26 states there are no Black justices, in 39 there are none of Latino decent, in 42 none are Asian, and in 46 none are Native American. Discrepancies between the composition of these courts and the communities they serve, explain the reports authors, undermines public confidence in the judicial system and limits the range of perspectives essential for fair decision-making.

Judicial Selection: Patterns and an Interactive Map

State court judges are selected differently from state to state. Some win their seats through partisan or nonpartisan elections, some are appointed by governors, and some are picked through a combination of nominating commission, gubernatorial appointment, and retention election, in which voters are asked to cast a yes or no ballot about whether to allow a judge to remain on the bench.

The Brennan Center compiled notable patterns in the judicial selection landscape and created an interactive map offering a comprehensive overview of the judicial selection processes across the United States. Users can contrast electoral and appointment methods, review timelines of selection reforms, and assess how these differing practices shape the composition and independence of state courts. 

State Court Structures

“State court structures vary wildly across the United States,” the National Center for State Court’s State Court Structures report says. “Each state has its own unique organization with different levels and types of courts.”

The report summarizes different court types, judicial structures, routes of appeal, and more. Users can explore heatmaps comparing state demographics, caseload size, and death penalty information; review data about subject matter jurisdiction across courts; and view charts depicting judicial funding sources. The platform makes it easy to compare how judicial systems operate across the states.

State Supreme Court Chief Justices’ Financial Disclosures

“It’s vital the public understands what financial interests and other entanglements state supreme court judges might have,” writes Gabe Roth, executive director of Fix the Court, a nonprofit that advocates for judicial openness and accountability. “If the public doesn’t know what types of gifts and free trips a judge has received during the year, or what investments they have, or where their spouse works, then we can’t be certain they’re truly unbiased no matter what cases come before them.”

Roth compiled and graded 2022 annual disclosure forms for every state supreme court chief justice in the country. The project provides insight into the variety of disclosure practices across the states and suggests reforms that could boost transparency and accountability within state judiciaries.

The State Constitutional Law Casebook Supplement

“Only a small minority of schools even offer state constitutional law as an elective,” writes Rutgers University law professor Katie Eyer. “This has real-world consequences, as it may mean that lawyers are genuinely unaware of the potential for state constitutional arguments.”

To encourage increased focus on state constitutional law in legal education, Eyer and Rutgers University law professor Robert Williams created an online module that law professors can easily integrate into first-year curricula. The module is meant as a one-day lesson and provides extensive materials to guide students toward a deeper understanding of this frequently overlooked area of law.

State Case Database

Finally, all readers should check out State Court Report’s State Case Database, where you’ll find summaries, briefs, and decisions for almost 1,000 state constitutional cases from 2021 through the present. Our experts review thousands of cases every year and add only those with the most significant impact on state constitutional law. The database helps ensure that advocates, students, and the general public can access information about the cases impacting their rights. 

This article walks you through how to navigate the database, including filtering by state or issue, locating relevant case documents, and interpreting key rulings.

Zoe Merriman is the production coordinator for State Court Report.

Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot is a senior counsel at the Brennan Center and the managing editor of State Court Report.

Suggested Citation: Zoe Merriman & Kathrina Szymborski Wolfkot, State Constitutional Resources We Love, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Feb. 25, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-constitutional-resources-we-love