This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, September 20th, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

State constitutions contain enormous powers to restrict government and preserve liberty, but that demands citizens who understand

the liberties that those constitutions protect.

Clint Bolick is a justice on the Arizona Supreme Court, we spoke during the Cato Institute's Constitution Day event held last week. the Does that matter? It does matter because the national constitution was modeled after a number of these state

constitutions, especially with regard to the Bill of Rights and what rights were considered important

to protect against the national government, but also in terms of the structure of government

having a two-house legislature, an executive and a separate judicial

branch.

And these were, so these were models that were closely examined.

Now when I asked that about does it matter, I'm talking about where a state constitution

might end up conflicting with a contemporary interpretation of the US Constitution.

Well, and I have very strong opinions on that opinions that I've brought with me to the judiciary.

I believe that state constitutions should be interpreted without regard to how the federal

courts have interpreted the federal constitution.

State constitutions, some instances are antecedents to the

national constitution, but they all draw from the values and principles of their own people.

They are the organic law of the states.

And as such, they should be interpreted in a way that gives full meaning to the provisions of the state constitutions.

Now I'm thinking of in terms of like New Hampshire's state constitution, Rhode Island,

I mean these are constitutions that for a long time predated the

U.S. Constitution and have some fairly startling provisions.

...