What we do
The Constitutional Index is a landmark initiative to make America's 50 state constitutions easier to compare, explore, and research.
Discover and compare the constitutional provisions and institutional mechanisms that sustain America's deliberative democracy and serve as the structural foundation of its freedom and justice.
The Resulting Data
Over a two-year period, the constitutional texts of all fifty states were carefully analyzed and organized into 975 distinct subjects, creating a structured foundation for exploration, comparison, and research.
The Constitutional Index turns the fifty state constitutions into a navigable map of American self-government. State constitutions have long served as laboratories of democratic growth, offering different answers to shared public challenges, often building on one another's innovations. By making those answers easier to find, compare, and understand, the platform allows students of democracy —within the United States and beyond— to learn from this constitutional diversity and draw inspiration for renewed democratic innovation.
Why State Constitutions Matter
Much of the government that most directly affects Americans' daily lives is state and local. From opening a business to operating public schools, from administering elections to resolving criminal and civil disputes, state constitutions shape the institutions citizens encounter most often and depend on. They are not merely historical documents; they are the operating frameworks of the governments closest to the people.
The Constitutional Index exists to make the fifty state constitutions easier to explore, teach, and research. By connecting students, researchers, lawyers, and citizens with the provisions that organize state government, distribute public power, protect rights, and create systems of accountability, the platform helps illuminate the constitutional architecture of American deliberative democracy.