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State Courts Determine Whether Abortion Rights Amendments Will Go Before Voters

Cases in multiple states demonstrate the significant roles state judges play in the direct democracy process. 

What Does Popular Sovereignty Really Mean?

Two new essays unpack recent state supreme court cases about the relationship between direct democracy and the power of state legislatures.

Jessie Hill

Jessie Hill is the Judge Ben C. Green Professor of Law and director of the Reproductive Rights Law Initiative at Case Western Reserve University.

Religious Freedom Claims Could Provide New Path to Protect Abortion Rights

Challenges to abortion bans by religious plaintiffs have had mixed results. 

Events

State Constitutions and the Limits of Criminal Punishments

This symposium will engage with the growing legal and intellectual movement to challenge excessive criminal punishments via state constitutional prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishments and related clauses.

Multiple High Courts Uphold Voters’ Right to Use Ballot Measures to Change Law

Decisions in California, Michigan, and Utah could serve as models for courts in other states facing power struggles between legislatures and proponents of voter-approved ballot initiatives. 

Direct Democracy Under Attack 

Courts in Utah and Michigan recently blocked legislative assaults on the ballot initiative process.