... state constitutions in our view of American constitutionalism, many successful movements for positive constitutional rights become immediately apparent. The campaigns for positive rights have varied across states and over time, but each has worked for a more expansive government, one intended to protect...

... analyzes the ubiquitous assumptions about “higher lawmaking” and states' idiosyncrasies that have animated its critics. It explores whether we should really revise our conception of American constitutional rights based solely on the state constitutions' (highly detailed) contents. It argues...

... created not only to overturn particular court decisions, but also to preempt possible litigation. It also shows how labor organizations used constitutional rights to dictate state legislatures what they had to do while simultaneously telling courts what they could not do. The chapter demonstrates...

...Unlike many national constitutions, which contain explicit positive rights to such things as education, a living wage, and a healthful environment, the U.S. Bill of Rights appears to contain only a long list of prohibitions on government. American constitutional rights, we are often told, protect...

...This book examines the nature and political origins of America's positive constitutional rights. It is widely assumed that constitutional rights in the United States protect people from government alone, not to mandate that government to protect them from other sorts of dangers. In other words...

... duty to expand opportunities for children whose parents could not otherwise afford to educate them, and that state legislatures should be legally obligated to fulfill it. This movement's central claim was that the value of constitutional rights lay in their potential to promote policy changes...

...This chapter examines the campaigns for constitutional rights to environmental protection. In the 1960s and 1970s, when Congress was passing landmark environmental regulations and an entire executive agency had been developed to address the subject, environmental activists continued to lobby...