All 50 states have their own constitution.

What makes Michigan's constitution unique?

Last time on Curious About Civics We learned about the Declaration of Independence.

So for this episod we're covering the Constitution.

But probably not the one you're thinking of.

States can have constitutions too.

I went to the Archives of Michigan to learn more.

What is Michigan's constitution?

Michigans state constitution is a document that outlines the rights tha the people of Michigan have, as well as how the state government is structured.

All 50 states have their own constitution, which is unique to them, and the issues that they specifically want addressed and a constitution is also not set in stone.

It can change over time.

Or if states want to make really large changes, they can entirely rewrite it.

Why do states have their own constitutions?

Isn't the federal one for everybody?

that is a really good question.

The federal one is for everybody but state constitutions can include a lot more than what is in the federal constitution.

So they, they tend to be a lot longer than the federal one, because they can get more detailed.

There is a supremacy clause in the US Constitution, which means that if there's anything conflicting between a state constitution and the federal one, then the federal one does take priority.

But other than that, the constitution of the state that you live in is the law of the land.

So they are very important documents.

How long has Michigan had a constitution?

Michigan has actually had four different constitutions.

The first one was adopted in 1835 which is actually two years before Michigan was even a state.

And then the next one were adopted in 1850 and 1908.

And then our current constitution was adopted in 1963. as soon as a new constitution is adopted, the previous one is no longer in effect.

It becomes obsolete.

So now that I know how many constitutions there have been, I'm curious about why they change.

What methods are there and what's the process?

A constitution can be changed in two ways, either through an amendment or by a general revision.

amendments are really good ways to update, specific issues for the modern era.

An amendment starts ou as a proposal, either initiated by the legislature or through a citizen led campaign, and then any proposal that makes it to the ballot is then voted on by the people of Michigan of whether to accept it.

To add it to the Constitution or reject it.

For example in 2020, Michigan passed an amendment to the Constitution to require law enforcement to have search warrants for electronic data similar similar to how they need search warrants, to search someone's physical property.

So that's just one of those, like, common sense, updates for the the digital world that we live in now right?

Which they would hav had no idea about in the 1960s.

The other way a constitution can be changed is through a general revision, which is basically rewriting the entire document.

Every 16 years people of Michigan are asked to vote on whether to convene a constitutional convention to rewrite the Constitution.

That question will actually show up on the ballot this year in 2026, in the November election.

So if the majority of people vote yes, then we will be convenin a new constitutional convention.

It has been 60 years since the last convention, so that question every 16 years has failed since then.

But we'll see what happens this year.

Okay.

So every 16 years Michigan voters decide if there will be a constitutional convention.

But what is a constitutional convention?

And how does it work?

So a constitutional convention, which a lot of people shorten to con con because it just rolls off the tongue easier.

It brings togethe delegates from around the state to analyze the current constitution, and then decide how they want to revise or rewrite it.

the last con-con we had, which ran from 1961 to 1962, had 144 elected delegates from around the state, including, for the first time, women and black delegates.

It was just as hard then for people to agree on things as it is now.

And something as important as the governing document of the stat has pretty high stakes, right?

So after a con con proposes a new constitution, the people of Michigan vote on whether to approve it or reject it.

There have in the past been two proposed constitutions that were rejected in 1867 and 1873.

So rejections do happen.

Okay.

So every 16 years, Michigan voters decid if there will be a convention.

If they vote yes, delegates are elected and they propose a new document.

Then voters decide if it'll be approved.

I want to know more about the context for each choice.

Why choose a con con instead of an amendment?

So between the two methods to change the constitution, one isn't necessarily better than the other.

It just depends on what your goals are.

Amendments are more focused in scope and can happen more frequently.

Michigan has actually passed a total of 148 amendments to our state constitutions since 1835.

Rewriting the entire Constitution through a con con does allow yo to change more things at once, but it also allows anything in the Constitution to be up on the table for change, which is a little bit scary.

That's one of the reasons why rewriting the entire constitution happens much more infrequently than an amendment.

Do all 50 states have their own constitutions?

Yes, they do, as well as the American territorie of Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Northern Mariana Islands.

And indigenous nations all over the country also have their own constitutions.

That's a lot of constitutions.

But what makes Michigan's constitution unique.

Michigan' current constitution from 1963 was quite remarkable at the time, as well as the con con that produced it.

The Constitution itself was remarkable in that it was the first one in the country to mandate that the stat have a civil rights commission.

And also permanently abolishe the death penalty in the state.

It was a remarkable and forward thinking constitution for the time, for the early 1960s.

And, it's still studied today by academics and lawyers.

I know what you're thinking.

We're at the archives.

When do we get to see the document?

You're in luck, because we got two.

The original and the current version.

In this box is Michigan's original constitution from 1835.

It is almost 200 years old at this point.

Woah.

Whoa!

When th 1850 Constitution was adopted, the 1835 one was no longer in effect.

So they basically rolled it up and put it in a lead tube.

This constitution actually is the only one that has been inside all three of Michigan's capitals.

So it's been originally in, the one in Detroit and then the first one in Lansing and then our current capitol here in Lansing.

And it was sort of forgotten about after it was put in that, too, for a long time.

And then in 1913, in our current Capitol, somebody found it in a storage room.

Oh, no.

And so they took it out of the tube and it looked like this.

You can see it was in pretty bad shape.

It was all dried out and flaking because this original one was also written on parchment instead of paper and parchment is animal skin.

So it did not do very well.

And that lead tube, So this is how they found it.

And then an organization called The daughters of the American Revolution, paid for restoration.

And so that's how it got in this, bound volume here.

Wow.

So that's the original.

But then we have this facsimile copy, which is basically a direct copy.

There's two really remarkabl things about this Constitution.

So it was the first state constitution to fund public education.

Okay.

Which they funded through revenue from property taxes.

It was also the first constitution to fund public libraries, which they funded through fines from the penal code.

Wow.

just like our current constitution, this one was also quite forward thinking.

Did they hand write this or was it printed?

This is handwritten.

Wow.

Yeah.

So you can see someone had really nice penmanship.

That's right.

Yeah.

you can tell it's handwriting because they they made some mistakes an they scribbled out that's crazy.

Yeah.

There was no backspace.

Yeah.

this is the state of Michigan's current constitution.

So this is the official copy which was adopted in 1963.

Wow.

assume this one was printed.

Yes.

So it was printed.

let's start with the preamble.

Similar to the, federal constitution.

And then it also has a bill of rights.

This one's called the Declaration of Rights.

When this was approved.

The voters only approved i by a margin of like 7000 votes.

So it was really, really close.

And then here is a photo o the constitutional convention.

You can see all the the people that were involved.

Each of these people is a delegate.

And then this is actually an occasion where, former President Dwight Eisenhowe came to speak at the convention.

Wow.

So that's him giving a speech to the convention.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's so cool.

That was a lot of information.

Let's review the key points.

The United States federal Constitution is the law of the land for the entire country.

But states have constitutions, too.

These documents can be longer and more detailed than the federal one, and more specific to the needs of the state.

Each state has its own policies around revising and rewriting its constitution.

Changes can be made in two ways either an amendment or a general revision.

Michigan's current constitution was adopted in 1963 after voters decided a constitutional convention should be held.

This is a question that Michigan voters see on the ballot every 16 years.

The next time this question will be on the ballot is November 2026.

Thanks for watching this episode of Curious About Civics.