Generally speaking, a constitution is defined as “the fundamental principles of a government and the basic structures and procedures by which the government operates to fulfill those principles” (Harrison, et al. p. 34). Constitutions may be written or unwritten, and serve to outline a government’s basic procedures of operation, as aforementioned. In the United States, there are two different types of constitutions: a constitution for each state, written by each state, and a single federal constitution. While alike in many ways including purpose and structure, the two types of constitutions differ from one another in several ways; for example, state constitutions are usually much longer and more detailed than the federal constitution, as they
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27). Because the Nevada Constitution is more specific than the federal Constitution, Nevada judges experience difficulty in interpreting the state Constitution as broadly as federal judges, namely the Supreme Court, may tend to interpret the federal Constitution depending on the context of each case. For example, both the First Amendment to the US Constitution and Article I, Section IX of the Nevada Constitution enumerate the right to freedom of speech and the press; however, this right may be limited by such things as the statement in the Nevada Constitution declaring that “no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the …show more content…
The main constraint is that Nevada is one of a select few states that enable all of what are commonly referred to as the seven forms of direct democracy, and is the only state that enables the process of statute affirmation. These forms, discussed briefly, are as follows: the legislatively referred constitutional amendment, which is a proposed constitutional amendment that appears as a ballot measure due to a vote to put it before a state’s voters. This is the same process as the next form, the legislatively referred state statute. The first form that relies on ballot initiative is the initiated state statute, or the initiative statute, which is defined as, also according to Ballotpedia, “a new law that a state adopts via the ballot initiative process.” There also exist initiated constitutional amendments, which also rely on the initiative process. Another form of direct democracy is the recall process, which sees voters petition for an elected official to be removed from office. The majority of these forms of direct democracy place power in the hands of the voters through the process of voter initiative, which is defined as, yet again according to Ballotpedia, “a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can bring about a public vote on a proposed
27). Because the Nevada Constitution is more specific than the federal Constitution, Nevada judges experience difficulty in interpreting the state Constitution as broadly as federal judges, namely the Supreme Court, may tend to interpret the federal Constitution depending on the context of each case. For example, both the First Amendment to the US Constitution and Article I, Section IX of the Nevada Constitution enumerate the right to freedom of speech and the press; however, this right may be limited by such things as the statement in the Nevada Constitution declaring that “no power exists in the people of this or any other State of the Federal Union to dissolve their connection therewith or perform any act tending to impair, subvert, or resist the …show more content…
The main constraint is that Nevada is one of a select few states that enable all of what are commonly referred to as the seven forms of direct democracy, and is the only state that enables the process of statute affirmation. These forms, discussed briefly, are as follows: the legislatively referred constitutional amendment, which is a proposed constitutional amendment that appears as a ballot measure due to a vote to put it before a state’s voters. This is the same process as the next form, the legislatively referred state statute. The first form that relies on ballot initiative is the initiated state statute, or the initiative statute, which is defined as, also according to Ballotpedia, “a new law that a state adopts via the ballot initiative process.” There also exist initiated constitutional amendments, which also rely on the initiative process. Another form of direct democracy is the recall process, which sees voters petition for an elected official to be removed from office. The majority of these forms of direct democracy place power in the hands of the voters through the process of voter initiative, which is defined as, yet again according to Ballotpedia, “a means by which a petition signed by a certain minimum number of registered voters can bring about a public vote on a proposed