Iowa – The New York Times

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wasn’t exactly a reset. Instead of updating a specific constitutional guarantee,
the people of Iowa updated the general principles under which the specific
guarantees should be read. Hence, when we interpret the specific guarantees of
the Iowa Constitution, we must do so with attention to the rights of women as
they have evolved from 1857 to 1998. Although much of Democracy in America
rings true today, Tocqueville’s observations about women may no longer apply:
Thus Americans do not believe that man and woman have the
duty or the right to do the same things, but they show the same
esteem for the role of each of them, and they consider them as beings
whose value is equal although their destiny differs.
substance of the language of article 156 of the Constitution of 1879, intended that it should have
the same meaning that this court had given to it . . . ; otherwise the language would have been
changed.”); Wakem v. Inhabitants of Van Buren, 15 A.2d 873, 875 (Me. 1940) (“It is a general rule
that a reenactment, in substantially the same language, of a constitutional provision which had
been previously construed and explained by the court, carries with it the same meaning
previously attributed by the court to the earlier provision, in the absence of anything to indicate
that a different meaning was intended.”); Hitchcock v. State, 131 A.2d 714, 719 (Md. 1957)
(“Where a constitutional provision has received a judicial construction and then is incorporated
into a new or revised constitution, it will be presumed to have been re-adopted with the
knowledge of the previous construction and to have been intended to have the meaning given it
by that construction.”); In re Sizer, 254 S.W. 82, 84 (Mo. 1923) (en banc) (“The readoption of the
constitutional provision now under consideration so many times with the interpretation placed
upon it by this court, to say the least, is very persuasive evidence that the real meaning of the
provision was just what this court has so long been holding that it meant.”); Bodie v. Pollock, 195
N.W. 457, 458 (Neb. 1923) (per curiam) (“It is well settled in many, if not most, of the jurisdictions
of the country that, where a construction of constitutional provisions has been adopted and a
constitutional convention thereafter re-enacts such provisions, it re-enacts not only the language
of the provisions but the construction which has attached to the same.”); Craig v. State, 50 Tenn.
227, 230 (1871) (“The Convention which recently formed the new Constitution of this State,
permitted the clause in the declaration of rights, to remain unaltered, with a full knowledge, as
is to be presumed, of the decisions above mentioned, which, in our judgment, rests upon sound
principle, and ought not to be disturbed.”); LeCroy v. Hanlon, 713 S.W.2d 335, 340 (Tex. 1986)
(“The people ratified the court’s approach by passing an identical provision in the 1876
Constitution.”); see also Clark v. Ada Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs, 572 P.2d 501, 507 (Idaho 1977)
(Lodge, Dist. J., specially concurring) (“That holding not only remains unchanged, it has been
re-enforced by the fact that… the people of Idaho have amended Article 18, Section 6 of the
Constitution several times, and each time have retained the elective position of county
assessor.”); McLinko v. Dep’t of State, 279 A.3d 539, 592 n.20 (Pa. 2022) (Wecht, J., concurring)
(“There can be no doubt that, where language is retained, its extant meaning and prior
constructions are relevant to its present interpretation.”).