The California Supreme Court today upheld Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage but also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law. [Updated at 10:04 a.m.: The court also ruled that gay couples who wed before the election will continue to be married under state law.]The decision virtually ensures another fight at the ballot box over marriage rights for gays. Gay rights activists said they may ask voters to repeal the marriage ban as early as next year, and opponents have pledged to fight any such effort. Proposition 8 passed with 52% of the vote.By a 52-48 margin, voters approved the measure reinstating a ban on same-sex marriage after the state Supreme Court, in a landmark ruling last May, approved such marriages. Left in limbo were about 18,000 couples who got married in California between May and November of last year.The case for overturning the initiative was widely viewed as a long shot. Gay rights lawyers had no solid legal precedent on their side, and some of the court’s earlier holdings on constitutional revisions mildly undercut their arguments.But gay marriage advocates captured a wide array of support in the case, with civil rights groups, legal scholars and even some churches urging the court to overturn the measure. Supporters of the measure included many churches and religious organizations.The legal fight over same-sex marriage in California began in San Francisco in 2004, when Mayor Gavin Newsom spurned state law, and the city began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. Long lines of couples showed up to marry and celebrated within view of the court with rice and champagne.Those marriages sparked a national debate about gay rights and made the marriage question a political issue in an election year. Dozens of states later adopted constitutional amendments to bar same-sex marriage.Those gay couples who wed in San Francisco later had their marriages rescinded by the California Supreme Court, which ruled that a city could not single-handedly flout state law. But the court said supporters of marriage rights could challenge the ban in the lower courts.The legal fight moved to San Francisco Superior Court, where a judge struck down the marriage ban as unconstitutional. A Court of Appeal in San Francisco later overturned that decision on a 2-1 vote. The state high court eventually took up the case, which culminated in a May 15 ruling last year declaring gays could marry each other.Before last fall, California was one of only two states — the other was Massachusetts — to permit same-sex marriage.Iowa, Connecticut, Vermont and Maine have since legalized it, and lawmakers in New York, New Jersey and New Hampshire are considering bills of their own.California’s historic 2008 ruling, written by Chief Justice Ronald George, repeatedly invoked the words "respect and dignity" and framed the marriage question as one that deeply affected not just couples but also their children. California has more than 100,000 households headed by gay couples, about a quarter with children, according to 2000 census data.As soon as the ruling was final, thousands of gay couples showed up at city halls around the state to marry, and many flew in from elsewhere for California weddings. While the wedding business was brisk, opponents mounted a heated campaign with the help of churches and conservatives to overturn the court’s action.Even though the court has upheld Proposition 8, a key portion of the court’s May 15, 2008, decision remains intact. Sexual orientation will continue to receive the strongest constitutional protection possible when California courts consider cases of alleged discrimination. The California Supreme Court is the only state high court in the nation to have elevated sexual orientation to the status of race and gender in weighing discrimination claims.
The California Supreme Court has rendered it's decision on Proposition 8, the ban on same-sex marriage that passed on November's ballot. The court upheld the ban on same-sex marriages, while also ruling to continue to recognize the 18,000 existing California same-sex marriages that occurred before the ban.
This nomination should be judged principally on two grounds:(1) her judicial opinions (which Scotusblog's Tom Goldstein comprehensively reviews here) and(2) her answers at her confirmation hearing.But based on everything that is known now, this seems to be a superb pick for Obama.It is very encouraging that Obama ignored the ugly, vindictive, and anonymous smear campaign led by The New Republic's Jeffrey Rosen and his secret cast of cowardly Eminent Liberal Legal Scholars of the Respectable Intellectual Center. People like that, engaging in tactics of that sort, have exerted far too much influence on our political culture for far too long, and Obama's selection of one of their most recent targets both reflects and advances the erosion of their odious influence. And Obama's choice is also a repudiation of the Jeffrey-Rosen/Ben-Wittes/Stuart-Taylor grievance on behalf of white males that, as Dahlia Lithwick put it, "a diverse bench must inevitably be a second-rate bench."Obama has also ignored the deeply dishonest right-wing attacks on Sotomayor, beginning with the inane objection to her perfectly benign and accurate comments on videotape that appellate judges, as distinct from district court judges, "make policy." Lawyer Anonymous Liberal thoroughly eviscerated that line of attack as the shallow and deceitful argument it is. A similar avenue of certain attack -- that Sotomayor said in a 2001 speech that a female Latina judge has experiences that can inform her view of cases -- is equally frivolous. There are a whole range of discretionary judgments which judges are required to make; does anyone actually doubt that familiarity with a wide range of cultural experiences is an asset?
I applaud the nomination of Judge Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Her confirmation would add needed diversity in two ways: the first Hispanic and the third woman to serve on the high court. While her record suggests excellent educational and professional qualifications, now it is up to the Senate to discharge its constitutional duty for a full and fair confirmation process.
I just heard Ed Whelan, who's nuts, on NPR talking about the Sotomayor pick, and he predictably decried the Ricci opinion, saying that Sotomayor didn't even bother to give her opinion about those white firefighters who were discriminated against, in his view.Yeah, um, Sotomayor didn't write the opinion at all. She participated in it. That's kind of how appeals court opinions go.Mike Huckabee made known that he is opposed to Maria Sotomayor, so it's a good thing Obama picked Sonia.
Oops. The Republican National Committee prepared a detailed set of talking points for key Republicans to use regarding the Sotomayor nomination -- and then accidentally sent it to the media.
Does the nominee still have Diabetes? Could the Messiah heal her, or does she just not want to ask? What is protocal on miracle healings?
President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a federal appeals court judge in New York, as the first Hispanic to sit on the Supreme Court Monday, saying she has a “a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court Justice.”
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“Walking in the door she would bring more experience on the bench and more varied experience on the bench than anyone currently serving on the Supreme Court had when they were appointed,” Obama said at the White House, with Sotomayor by his side.In Sotomayor, Obama has chosen a nominee who will greatly please two powerful constituencies in his own party — women and Hispanics — that had openly lobbied for one of their own to replace Justice David Souter.Beyond pure politics, Obama has found somebody whose unlikely ascent to power is similar to his own life story. Obama highlighted Sotomayor’s humble roots. She grew up not far from Yankee Stadium in a Bronx Housing project. The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, Sotomayor lost her father at 9 and was largely raised by her nurse mother.“It is experience that can give a person a common touch, and a sense of compassion, a sense of how the world works and how ordinary people live, that is why it is necessary ingredient in the kind of justice we need on the Supreme Court,” Obama said.Obama said he looked for two qualities in his nominee – a rigorous intellect and an understanding that a judge’s job is to interpret law, not make it – and said he found both in Sotomayor.Of the four widely reported finalists, Sotomayor was the one Republicans said they would complain most loudly about, and conservative legal groups attacked within minutes after Obama’s selection was reported.Hispanic groups and even members of Congress had pushed hard for representation on the court, suggesting that the community would be let down if Obama passed over a qualified Latino. In fulfilling their wishes, Obama moves to solidify his hold on the pivotal Hispanic vote and tighten his party’s grasp on the west.Even Republicans admit her confirmation is assured in a Senate dominated by Democrats.But Senate Republicans say Sotomayor represents anything but a consensus pick, since her appeals-court confirmation vote in 1998 was 67-29 vote.Previewing the right’s planned reaction, Wendy E. Long, counsel to the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said in a statement: "Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one's sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.”However, the fact that Sotomayor is a Latina could also present a political challenge for Republicans. Senators from the GOP, which has suffered from an internal rift over immigration issues and problem-plagued efforts to reach out to Hispanics, will have to decide how directly and sharply they want to attack a Latina single mother whose confirmation to the court is virtually certain.
Republican legislators must absolutely, unconditionally oppose additional taxes — come hell, high water or the public employee unions.
(GOP gubernatorial candidate) Meg Whitman....called Thursday for sharply shrinking California's work force by laying off more than 30,000 state employees.
Unfortunately, Darrell Steinberg and Karen Bass failed the first test, stuck in a mindset that will bring the state to ruin. First, Steinberg."The voters have spoken and they are telling us that government should do the best it can with the money it has. We will immediately and responsibly get to work to balance the budget and head off a cash crisis in July. Delay is not an option. The necessary decisions we must make will only get harder with time."
That is not what voters are telling you.... California is a big state and no one message from a statewide election can predominate, but the mass boycott of the polls certainly suggests that we don't want to do your job anymore. I know it's been so long since Democrats exercised their Democratic muscles and principles in Sacramento, but this election called out the political leadership for failed governance. And everyone who has studied this for half a second understands that the failure will continue until the structural barriers are removed. And so making this absurd and vindictive statement about voter intentions both misses an opportunity to refocus the discussion and angers the grassroots further.
Here's Bass:"There are many difficult choices and a lot of hard work ahead of us. We now have to responsibly fill the budget hole that has been caused by the national recession and deepened by the failure of today's ballot propositions. I hope the bipartisan cooperation between the Legislature and the Governor that went into this effort will continue as we move forward - the people of California clearly expect us to work together to get the job done. And we will."The people of California could give a rat's ass who works together with who. They don't want to see this level of dysfunction anymore. Bipartisan cooperation was clearly rejected last night, because inevitably that gives leverage to the minority and provides unworkable non-solutions.
California could fire every state employee -- including well-paid prison guards and university professors -- close every government office, stop all travel and even cease the purchase of paper clips without closing the budget gap. The government would be gone but the deficit wouldn't.The runaway spending is caused largely by an ever growing group of Californians making use of basic state services as the cost of those services escalates. Since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took office, for example, the amount the state spends on Medi-Cal health insurance for the poor has grown more than 40%, from under $10 billion annually to more than $14.4 billion. Spending on community mental health services has nearly tripled, and the state's program that provides services for the disabled leapt from a $1.6-billion annual expense to nearly $2.4 billion.This has happened despite efforts by the state to contain costs. Primary care doctors, for example, are paid just $26 for an office visit with a Medi-Cal patient. There is no simple way to seriously limit these healthcare costs short of eliminating the benefits for hundreds of thousands of Californians.The same scenario holds true for prisons, where state spending jumped from $6.5 billion to nearly $10.5 billion under Schwarzenegger. The federal courts mandated much of that spending after ruling that the state's prisoners have been widely mistreated. The alternative to spending the money is releasing tens of thousands of inmates and parolees.Similar challenges confront other big states too. Yet few of them have plunged into the same condition of financial despair. They move quicker to spot and confront financial problems as they arise. Here, problems mount fast and then are left to fester as political leaders bicker.
The Democratic leadership should listen to its grassroots.They should immediately stop negotiating with the governor and other Republicans on how to destroy even more of what makes our state human. The Democrats, as a whole body, not just the leadership, should assert their majority, decide for themselves how they want to deal with the shortfall, and then invite the defeated Republicans publicly to join them and take their proposals to the public, first organizing serious grassroots support.
Contrary to what the Governor is saying after the defeat of his proposals, Prop 1A did not fail because voters delivered a message to “go all out” in cutting government spending. The all-time record low turnout for a statewide special election clearly demonstrates the lack of depth to that argument.......Voters simply do not trust the leadership in Sacramento, and recognize that the failed special election was just another example of the inability to bring real solutions to voters. When given two choices, four out of five voters – even among those who voted ‘Yes’ on 1A – agreed that the special election was just another example of the failure of the Governor and Legislature, who should make the hard decisions necessary to really fix the budget. Only 20% agreed the special election was a sincere effort to fix the state’s budget mess.
Jane Harman, "I have always opposed drilling off the California coast and in the ANWR. The Governor's proposal is pedaling backwards and threatens a sensitive marine ecosystem. The best way forward is to focus on a green economy - building green jobs, pursuing energy independence and efficiency. California is good at this. That's what the Governor should be promoting."Marcy Winograd, "I remember the nightmare of 1969, when an oil blow-out off the Santa Barbara coast spilled 100,000 barrels of crude into the channel, clogging the blowholes of dolphins, causing them to hemorrhage, soaking diving birds in tar, poisoning other sea life and driving tourists away from black gooey beaches that left barefoot visitors aghast. The only up side to the spill was the birth of Earth Day and the momentum it gave to the environmental movement, which will -- undoubtedly -- roar a mighty roar should the Governor go anywhere near our coastline with a drill bit."
With closed libraries, crappy schools, unaffordable college, and mass unemployment, few business in their right mind would want to relocate here. As other states plan for the 21st century by moving toward green transportation and new investments in education, California is locking itself into a late 20th century model that has already failed.
Good afternoon,You are receiving this email because you signed up at WhiteHouse.gov. My staff and I plan to use these messages as a way to directly communicate about important issues and opportunities, and today I have some encouraging updates about health care reform.The Vice President and I just met with leaders from the House of Representatives and received their commitment to pass a comprehensive health care reform bill by July 31.We also have an unprecedented commitment from health care industry leaders, many of whom opposed health reform in the past. Monday, I met with some of these health care stakeholders, and they pledged to do their part to reduce the health care spending growth rate, saving more than two trillion dollars over the next ten years -- around $2,500 for each American family. Then on Tuesday, leaders from some of America's top companies came to the White House to showcase innovative ways to reduce health care costs by improving the health of their workers.Now the House and Senate are beginning a critical debate that will determine the health of our nation's economy and its families. This process should be transparent and inclusive and its product must drive down costs, assure quality and affordable health care for everyone, and guarantee all of us a choice of doctors and plans.Reforming health care should also involve you. Think of other people who may want to stay up to date on health care reform and other national issues and tell them to join us here:Health care reform can't come soon enough. We spend more on health care than any country, but families continue to struggle with skyrocketing premiums and nearly 46 million are without insurance entirely. It is a priority for the American people and a pillar of the new foundation we are seeking to build for our economy.We'll continue to keep you posted about this and other important issues.Thank you,Barack ObamaP.S. If you'd like to get more in-depth information about health reform and how you can participate, be sure to visit http://www.HealthReform.gov.
Dear Friends & Supporters:It's official. I have declared my intention to challenge the Queen of Wiretaps, Jane Harman, once again -- this time in 2010 (or sooner, should she follow Specter's lead and switch parties!). Please note I promise I will not accept any $$ or favors from AIPAC or Alberto Gonzales.Thank you for your support.In peace, Marcy Winograd
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