Specificity and Judicial Review

Abstract

AbstractDetailed constitutions restrict the range of institutional and policy options available to legislators, agencies, and local governors, and it falls to judges to enforce those constraints. As a result, state supreme courts invalidate more legislative and executive actions in states with lengthier constitutions. Frequent constitutional amendment to keep the constitution current with legislator preferences helps but does not overcome the effect of a lengthy constitution. Constitutional specificity explains more of the state-to-state variance in judicial invalidation rates than other plausible control variables, such as the ideological distance between a state’s legislature and its highest court, the court’s caseload, or the method of selecting state judges.