TALLAHASSEE — The Florida State University College of Law’s Jim Rossi, the Harry M. Walborsky Professor and Associate Dean for Research, has published a new book on constitutional law. 

New Frontiers of State Constitutional Law: Dual Enforcement of Norms (Oxford University Press 2010) aims to change the way people think about state constitutional law in relation to U.S. constitutional law. The collection of essays was coedited by Rossi with the University at Buffalo Law School’s James A. Gardner. The book contains chapters by Rossi and other leading state constitutional law scholars. 

“State constitutions are central to modern debates surrounding same sex marriage, civil rights, immigration policy and regulatory issues such as health care. Yet state constitutional law remains underexplored in the law school classroom and in the scholarly literature, where discussions of the U.S. Constitution crowd out attention to similar state documents,” says Rossi. “The essays that are included in this book highlight the significance of state constitutions. It is our goal to move the ball forward by positioning debates about state constitutional interpretation in the context of a federalism dynamic that sees state courts as important partners in the evolution of constitutional norms.” 

Sanford Levinson, of the University of Texas Law School and Department of Government, calls the book “an outstanding collection of essays on the problems posed by the fact that too often constitutional theorists and teachers focus exclusively on the United States Constitution while ignoring the constitutions of the fifty states.” He describes the essays as “truly illuminating.” 

Rossi is recognized for his scholarship on participation in administrative procedure at both the federal and state levels, as well as his work on legal and economic barriers to competition and climate change policies in energy industries. He is the author of more than three dozen articles and several books. In addition, he has taught as a visitor at the Harvard, Vanderbilt and University of Texas law schools. 

Rossi is one of many productive scholars on the Florida State law faculty, which is rated by Leiter’s Law School Rankings(2010) as the nation’s 23rd best in terms of per capita scholarly impact.