State constitutions have been used to expand rights to voting, marriage and even marijuana. As American families and early educators continue to struggle with a broken child care system, constitutional amendments lay on the table, gathering dust like an unused tool. It may be time for child care champions to consider leveraging this tool to establish a fundamental right to child care.
Constitutions are powerful, both practically and symbolically. After the Civil War, as Congress was debating what defeated Confederate states must do to rejoin the Union, a surprising requirement rose to the top. When Southern states rewrote their constitutions, they were expected to include voting rights—but also a right to public education. Some years later, in 1881, then-President James Garfield inveighed on the importance of these rights in his inaugural address. “The voters of the Union, who make and unmake constitutions, and upon whose will hang the destinies of our governments, can transmit their supreme authority to no successors save the coming generation of voters, who are the sole heirs of sovereign power,” he said. “If that generation comes to its inheritance blinded by ignorance and corrupted by vice, the fall of the Republic will be certain and remediless.” Garfield concluded that, “For the North and South alike there is but one remedy. All the constitutional power of the nation and of the States and all the volunteer forces of the people should be surrendered to meet this danger by the savory influence of universal education.”
Elliot Haspel is a Senior Fellow at Capita.