Bridget Lavender (’23), current Fellow with the ACLU National Legal Department, published an analysis-opinion in State Court Report highlighting how some state constitutions offer broader protections for petitioning government than those afforded by the federal Constitution (“The Right to Petition in State Constitutions, Explained,” Jul. 30). Tracing its origins in English common law back to pre-Magna Carta England, Bridget detailed how “American colonists brought this fundamental right [to petition] to the colonies and repeatedly affirmed it both explicitly (by including it in colonial charters) and implicitly (through widespread use of petitioning activity).” She also looked at how “many state petition clauses diverge in significant ways from the First Amendment’s text,” but most state constitutional petition provisions “frame the right as a positive one (an entitlement), rather than a negative one (a restriction on the government). This textual distinction from the First Amendment strongly suggests that the framers of the state constitutions meant for their clauses to be broader and more protective than the federal First Amendment, and to be enforceable even without legislation authorizing a right of action.”