Appellate Law

Texas Lawyers Could Use This Kind of Resource

By D. Todd Smith

As discussed this morning at Don Cruse's Supreme Court of Texas Blog and picked up by How Appealing, Justice Don Willett wrote an interesting op-ed that appeared recently in the online version of the Austin American-Statesman.  (Note to the Statesman's editorial staff:  When you receive a submission from a sitting Texas Supreme Court justice, it's probably a good idea to publish it in the print edition as well.)

In honor of Constitution Day, Justice Willett discussed the U.S. Supreme Court's recent Heller decision (the D.C. gun-ban, Second Amendment case) and the parties' and Court's reliance on a new, fully indexed online library of constitutional source materials created by ConSource.  Justice Willett, who sits on ConSource's national advisory board, describes it as "a nonprofit with this singular goal:  granting direct access to our Founders' words."

In his blog post, Don Cruse mentioned the Debates in the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1875 as something of a state counterpart.  As Don noted, though, "[i]t’s not as lovingly annotated as its federal equivalents, but it does shed at least a little light on some of the more mysterious parts of our constitution."

These are undoubtedly useful resources.  But honestly, I don't often analyze  federal or state constitutional provisions in my practice.  For most folks like me, better documentation and dissemination of state statutory legislative history would be more useful.  When someone creates a nonprofit entity dedicated to that purpose, just tell me where to send a check.

Full post as published by Texas Appellate Law Blog on September 19, 2008 (boomark / email).