Tracking the Evolution of State Constitutions
The latest project of the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, 50 Constitutions strives to make state constitutions more accessible by providing a central repository of searchable constitutional text and an array of supplemental resources and research tools.
The project was made possible by years of digitizing constitutions across all 50 states, going back each year as early as each state constitution had first been written. We tackled this complex challenge by designing a compare-and-contrast tool to highlight changes to the constitutions line by line over time, providing an easy way to search and visualize differences in constitutional language.
The latest project of the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative, 50 Constitutions strives to make state constitutions more accessible by providing a central repository of searchable constitutional text and an array of supplemental resources and research tools.
The project was made possible by years of digitizing constitutions across all 50 states, going back each year as early as each state constitution had first been written. We tackled this complex challenge by designing a compare-and-contrast tool to highlight changes to the constitutions line by line over time, providing an easy way to search and visualize differences in constitutional language.
The main challenge we faced when building the 50 Constitutions website was the fact that constitutions vary widely from state to state. Some states, like Georgia and Louisiana, have had 10 different versions of their constitution! Making sure those changes could be compared between multiple versions of a state’s constitution was our largest technical hurdle.
We made it our main focus to keep the data as digestible as possible, including all the changes to articles, sections and amendments, while also ensuring that editors and users could easily comprehend that information.
Designed for flexibility
The site launched in September 2023, complete with an interactive timeline of the history of Wisconsin’s Constitution. It allowed all users — from attorneys and students to curious researchers — to search all of the provisions and amendments to the Wisconsin Constitution. This included the ability to compare and contrast changes to the Constitution even as minor as a single character change.
The site launched in September 2023, complete with an interactive timeline of the history of Wisconsin’s Constitution. It allowed all users — from attorneys and students to curious researchers — to search all of the provisions and amendments to the Wisconsin Constitution. This included the ability to compare and contrast changes to the Constitution even as minor as a single character change.
After launching the visualizer for Wisconsin, we expanded the website to support the complete history of constitutions of the other 49 states. Our partners gathered more data, and we went to work adding historical support for more states, starting with the handful of states who had similar constitutional structures to Wisconsin. Supporting the rest of the states required an overhaul of the data structure to make it more flexible and generic. Leaving behind the data structure originally built just for Wisconsin, we rebuilt our Vue.js/Nuxt front end and Craft CMS backend.
We eventually launched a major update that featured a complete history of amendments for 17 states. The search page was updated to be faster and provide more filtering options thanks to a new backend powered by Algolia.
Built for Growth
As the UW Law team continues to collect and enter historical data for more constitutions, the site will grow towards its goal of fully supporting all 50 states. Originally built for Wisconsin, and then evolving to have a more flexible data structure, the site’s growth will require minimal design and development support over the coming years.
This robust resource supports research and empowers people to examine constitutional change over time efficiently and accessibly. This solution presents this information in a manner that can reach a wider audience — from policy makers to interested citizens — help them understand the nature of change in State Constitutions more quickly and easily.
As the UW Law team continues to collect and enter historical data for more constitutions, the site will grow towards its goal of fully supporting all 50 states. Originally built for Wisconsin, and then evolving to have a more flexible data structure, the site’s growth will require minimal design and development support over the coming years.
This robust resource supports research and empowers people to examine constitutional change over time efficiently and accessibly. This solution presents this information in a manner that can reach a wider audience — from policy makers to interested citizens — help them understand the nature of change in State Constitutions more quickly and easily.
