This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, September 21st, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

One of the great unsung bulwarks of Liberty is the State Constitution, which in many cases goes farther in protecting individual

Liberty than the U.S. Constitution.

Darcy Olson, president of the Goldwater Institute and former Cato Scholar, comments on the role

of State Constitutions in securing liberty.

I think we all understand how important checks and balances were to the founders and one of

the most important checks and balances that they made

sure stayed in place as they as the United States was being formed was the primacy

of the state constitutions at that time and in fact the US the

was based on the state constitutions at that time and in fact the US constitution was based on the Virginia

state constitution and what the founders believed was that having two different sets of

constitutions, if you will, would provide a double security for the rights of the

people so that if the one document did not protect their rights, they could seek redress under the other document and vice versa.

Now states typically vary in the level of protection that they provide for any given right, but states often go much farther than the U.S. Constitution from gun rights to speech to the ability to walk around freely without government

interference. One of the best kept secrets in American politics is the strength of state constitutions.

We all understand how important the U.S. Constitution is and how many of our rights it protects,

but what I think so many people don't know is that the

federal constitution provides a baseline for those rights a floor for those

rights underneath which you cannot fall but that the states can provide a greater level

for free speech, a greater protection for property rights than the federal constitution does.

And this is particularly important important the more the courts

...