State legislatures are taking another run at a familiar question: when a dispute lands in an American courtroom, whose law governs?
The answer should be obvious. The U.S. Constitution comes first. State constitutions and statutes come next. Contracts are enforceable within that framework, not above it. Yet lawmakers in multiple states continue to file and move bills commonly grouped under the label American Laws for American Courts, or ALAC, because they do not trust courts to leave that priority unstated.
That distrust did not appear out of nowhere. It grew out of years of debate over whether judges should look to foreign law, international norms, or religious legal systems in family disputes, arbitration matters, and contract cases. In most day-to-day litigation, this is not the central issue. But that is not the same as saying it never matters. Legislatures write guardrails for the hard cases, not the easy ones.
What these bills are designed to do
At their core, these bills generally say a state court may not enforce a foreign law, legal code, or tribunal decision if doing so would violate a party's constitutional rights or conflict with state public policy.
That is the part supporters keep coming back to. Not symbolism. Priority.
If a contract points to foreign law, a court can consider that choice only up to the point where it collides with constitutional protections. If an arbitration award rests on a legal standard that denies due process, equal protection, free exercise, or other basic rights recognized under American law, the court should refuse enforcement. That is the theory. And on its face, it is hard to call it radical.
Supporters say the legislation is not about banning private religious practice. It is not about telling churches, synagogues, mosques, or other faith communities how to order voluntary internal affairs. It is about the authority of a civil court. One question. One courtroom. One sovereign legal order.
Why the issue keeps returning
Because the modern legal system is full of cross-border questions.
Immigration has increased family-law disputes involving marriages, divorces, and custody fights with foreign-country connections. Commerce runs on international contracts. Arbitration clauses can direct parties into private dispute systems before they ever see a judge. And American courts are routinely asked to recognize foreign judgments under principles of comity, the long-standing practice of giving effect to another jurisdiction's ruling unless it violates local law or public policy.
That last phrase matters. Unless it violates local law or public policy. Critics of ALAC-style bills say that protection already exists. In many states, they are right. Courts already have tools to reject a foreign judgment or contract term that offends basic rights.
But supporters answer with a point conservatives should take seriously: if the principle is already established, then codifying it should not be controversial. Put it in black letter law. Put it where a trial judge can read it in one sitting. Put it where a parent in a custody fight does not need a law review article to know what rules apply.
That is the real appeal of these bills. Clarity. You should not need to guess whether your constitutional protections survive the fine print in an international contract or the terms of a foreign custody decree.
The constitutional case for these measures
The strongest argument for these laws is not cultural. It is constitutional.
American courts derive authority from American constitutions and statutes. Judges do not sit as neutral global referees choosing among competing civilizations. They take an oath to the Constitution. That oath means something. It means foreign law may be a fact in a case. It may be relevant background. It may even be incorporated by contract in a limited way. But it cannot outrank the constitutional rights of the people before the court.
This is just federalism applied seriously. States have police powers. States define family law, probate rules, contract enforcement standards, and public policy limits in broad areas of civil life. If a legislature decides to make explicit that no foreign legal code can override those protections, it is acting well within its lane.
And there is another point conservatives often miss when they turn this into a purely national-security argument. This is also a separation-of-powers issue. When legislatures fail to speak clearly, judges fill the gaps. Agencies fill the gaps. Private arbitrators fill the gaps. The public then gets told the matter is too technical to revisit. That is how self-government erodes: not always with a dramatic ruling, but with quiet deference and procedural drift.
The objections, and which ones matter
Not every criticism of these bills is unserious.
Some civil-liberties groups and legal scholars argue the laws can be drafted too broadly. If poorly written, they can create confusion in ordinary contract disputes, interfere with legitimate arbitration, or invite constitutional challenges on free exercise grounds. Those are real drafting concerns. A sloppy bill can do more harm than good.
There is also a practical objection. Judges already know they cannot enforce terms that violate public policy or constitutional rights. So why pass a new law that mostly restates the obvious?
Because sometimes restating the obvious is the job.
You lock your front door even if burglary is already illegal. You require chain of custody in elections even if fraud is already prohibited. A rule that can be assumed can also be ignored, narrowed, or applied unevenly. The legislative habit of making first principles explicit is not extremism. It is maintenance.
The weaker objection is the one you hear most often in elite circles: that the entire debate is impolite, coded, or beneath serious attention. That argument tells you more about the speaker than the bill. A sovereign people are allowed to say their courts will enforce their own constitution first. In fact, if they cannot say that plainly, self-government has already become decorative.
What lawmakers should do if they are serious
If states are going to move these bills, they should do it cleanly.
Define foreign law precisely.
State clearly that the bill does not restrict voluntary religious practice or internal church governance protected by the First Amendment.
Limit the trigger to situations where enforcement would violate constitutional rights or fundamental state public policy.
Preserve ordinary commercial predictability where no such conflict exists.
Make findings plain enough that an appellate court can follow the legislature's intent without guesswork.
That is how you write a bill that survives review and does what it claims to do.
Conservatives should want that level of precision. A good bill narrows discretion. A bad one advertises virtue and then hands more work to judges.
Why this matters beyond one bill
This debate is bigger than one label and bigger than one interest group.
It goes to whether the American legal system still has the confidence to say what it is. A country that apologizes for constitutional supremacy in its own courts will not defend much else for long. Not parental rights. Not free exercise. Not due process. Not equal protection under one law applied to every citizen in the same civil forum.
Supporters of these measures are making a simple demand. In an American courtroom, the American Constitution governs. Not conditionally. Not sentimentally. Actually governs.
That principle should not depend on which judge you draw or how novel the case looks on paper.
State legislatures are right to revisit the question if they believe the guardrails are thin, unclear, or too dependent on judicial discretion. The test now is whether they produce careful law or just another press release.
Watch the committee votes. Read the bill text, not the summary. And if your state claims it already protects these rights, ask the useful follow-up: where, exactly, in statute, and with what remedy when a court gets it wrong?
That is not theater. That is citizenship.
