I've just signed a publication agreement with the Gonzaga Law Review to publish my article "The 'Mandatory' Clauses of State Constitutions." The article is the latest in a series I've been doing on the origins of interesting provisions of the Arizona Constitution--in this case, Article II Section 32, which says that everything in the Constitution is mandatory unless otherwise provided. That might seem like a weird thing to say in a constitution, because one might naturally assume that anything in a constitution is automatically mandatory. But thereby hangs a tale! It turns out that many nineteenth century courts did not think so. So constitution makers in California, Washington, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, and Arizona took steps to forbid "judicial restraint." And the legacy is the Mandatory Clauses, which, as I argue, require courts in those six states that have them, to reconsider certain doctrines that judges have sometimes used to withhold enforcement of constitutional promises. I delve into the history of these states' constitutions and find some really fun and interesting things.
You can read the current draft of my article here.
Here are the other articles in the series:
The Eminent Domain Clauses of the Washington and Arizona Constitutions (forthcoming in NYU Journal of Law & Liberty)
The Origins of the Arizona Gift Clause (Regent University Law Review)
The Arizona Gift Clause in the 21st Century (Drexel Law Review)
The Arizona "Private Affairs" Clause (Arizona Law Journal)
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