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Experts weigh in on Prop 8 at the Supreme Court
May 14, 2013
Marriage equality Marriage Equality Trials Prop 8 Prop 8 trial
By Scottie Thomaston
Attribution: LGBTQ Nation
Greg Stohr, writing in Bloomberg News, takes a look at the looming decision in Hollingsworth v. Perry, the Prop 8 case. The Justices are widely expected to issue the decision in late June, possibly in the last days of the Term. The piece examines the issue of the Prop 8 proponents’ legal standing to appeal the case, an issue that was briefed and argued in the case and is a threshold issue the Justices will need to decide before reaching the merits. The issue of Article III standing is important in the case because none of the government defendants appealed the district court’s decision striking down the initiative, and that left only the ballot initiative proponents to appeal. The government defendants enforced the law but didn’t defend it in district court, although as Marty Lederman pointed out at SCOTUSBlog, most of the government defendants filed answers to the plaintiffs’ complaint, and no one opposed the proponents’ motion to intervene in district court to defend the amendment’s constitutionality:
The California Attorney General, Jerry Brown (now the Governor), answered the complaint by admitting that Proposition 8 violates the Fourteenth Amendment. The other named defendants, including then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, did not admit the allegations, but also joined Attorney General Brown in refusing to defend the new law. Despite this nondefense, the defendants continued to enforce the law by denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples, including the plaintiffs.In the meantime, the five proponents of Proposition 8 and ProtectMarriage.com filed a motion to intervene as of right in the Perry proceeding, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a), on the ground that the named defendants would not adequately defend the measure’s constitutionality. No party opposed the motion, and the district court granted the proponents’ motion to intervene, ruling that “as official proponents, they have a significant protect[a]ble interest in defending Prop 8’s constitutionality.” The proponents thereafter controlled the defense of Proposition 8 in the district court.
After the proponents appealed the Ninth Circuit asked the California Supreme Court if ballot initiative proponents either have a particularized interest or can step into the state’s shoes to defend their interests in a passed ballot initiative. The California Supreme Court said that proponents can defend the state’s interest, and the Ninth Circuit held that their decision led to the conclusion that the Prop 8 proponents would have standing to appeal based on the state’s interest in defending Prop 8.
One of the plaintiffs’ lawyers told Stohr that they would be happy if, in the end, the Supreme Court ruled that the proponents lacked standing to appeal the case, because it would allow marriage equality in the state:
“A win on standing would be a victory that would establish marriage equality and wipe out Prop 8,” said Theodore Boutrous, a Los Angeles lawyer with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. “We would be very happy with that.”
But Stohr talked to others who weren’t so sure that the ruling would be that simple or final:
A standing ruling might mean “a quick death for Prop 8,” said Vikram Amar, a constitutional law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law. “But it’s also quite possible — maybe more likely — that it will take some time before we know which couples, beyond the two couples who sued, would be able to get their licenses.”
[...]
Some constitutional law professors, including Marty Lederman of Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, say Walker lacked power to issue a statewide ruling.“District court judges generally do not have the power to issue injunctions that protect persons other than the parties before them,” Lederman wrote in a post on Scotusblog, which tracks the court.
Amar has written previously that he believes that when ProtectMarriage, the ballot initiative proponents, took on the responsibility of passing the initiative and it did pass, voters didn’t knowingly appoint the group to represent the state (since, typically, the Attorney General and the Governor represent California’s interests in court.) His own view is that since ballot proponents aren’t appointed by voters to represent the state, they lack standing. He has also written (as he did in the series in the link above) that he believes both the Ninth Circuit and Judge Walker’s decisions should be wiped out.
Lederman’s argument is somewhat different: he has argued that Judge Walker didn’t have the authority to issue an injunction that applied to all couples or officials, and should have only enjoined officials from denying the actual Prop 8 plaintiffs a marriage license. He believes that even if the injunction is construed to only apply to the two couples in the case, state officials and lawyers have several options to extend the ruling to the whole state: state officials could choose to view the injunction as uniform and make sure it applies to all same-sex couples in California, or, alternatively, deny a marriage license to a same-sex couple and then refuse to defend or appeal a case when it is challenged, or deny a marriage license to a same-sex couple and when it’s challenged in court, file notices of appeal and make sure the case is adequately defended.
But as Stohr’s piece points out, the scope of Judge Walker’s injunction may not be addressed by the Court in the first place (the parties had disputed that there would be authority for the Court to change the scope of the injunction if it lacks standing to hear the case at all.)
Along with those options, one issue that Stohr doesn’t address is the possibility that the Court may “DIG” the case: dismiss the petition for certiorari as improvidently granted. That would mean the case would revert back to its status before the Court granted the petition, meaning the Ninth Circuit’s narrow ruling would remain in place, but it would only apply to California, since the facts of the case aren’t likely to be repeated elsewhere in the Ninth Circuit. The Court doesn’t DIG cases often, but it does at times. (This term they’ve already dismissed one case as improvidently granted.) There are limitations though, because of the process: it takes four votes to hear a case, so in theory, in all cases where only four Justices vote to grant cert, the other five could dismiss the petition as improvidently granted. Because of this, the Court usually won’t DIG a case unless at least one Justice who originally voted to grant cert has changed their mind. There was speculation, based on the oral argument, that it’s possible the four conservatives voted to hear (and would reverse) the case. If that’s true then it doesn’t appear likely any one of those four would change their mind.
Whatever will happen in June, there are several options that would eliminate Prop 8 even in the event of a Court ruling on Article III standing alone. And as others have pointed out, there are several more options for the Court to strike down Prop 8 if it chooses to issue a ruling on the merits. There’s only one decision that would definitively keep Prop 8 in place, and that would be for five Justices to uphold it. It’s objectively difficult to come up with five votes on the current Court for a decision upholding Prop 8. And this month, the three states that have passed marriage laws may have made that even less likely.
Leave a Comment May 14, 2013
Changes Ahead for Marriage Fight
May 14, 2013
By Matt Baume
More victories as a marriage bill clears hurdles in Minnesota. And there’s progress in neighboring states as well. But soon, constitutional amendments in 30 states could delay any further success for years to come.
Marriage equality is moving fast in Minnesota. By the time you watch this, the Senate may already have voted on a bill. It passed the House late last week, and passage in the Senate appears likely. From there, it goes to Governor Mark Dayton, who has pledged to sign it. This would bring the total number of states approving the freedom to marry up to 12, an increase of three in just the last month.
Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois is also pushing hard for a vote on a marrage bill. A February poll showed 50 percent support for marriage in Illinois, with just 29 percent opposed.
Marriage could be on the ballot this year in Ohio, with fundraising and signature-gathering well underway. And in Pennsylvania, a new Franklin and Marshall poll shows support for marriage at 54 percent to 41 percent.
Across the country in Nevada, a committee heard testimony on a marriage equality bill last week. but that bill still faces numerous votes and hearings, and the soonest it could appear on the ballot is 2016.
At this point, we’ve picked up several states in a very short amount of time, but this state-by-state approach could soon slow our momentum. Nevada isn’t the only state with a lengthy timeline and a lot of work before we gain the freedom to marry. Thirty states have constitutional amendments banning marriage. Overturning those amendments is going to be a lot harder and slower than passing bills in legislatures or even at the ballot box.
It’s going to take a lot of time, hard work and money. But there’s one thing that could accelerate the process: a Supreme Court ruling that marriage is a fundamental constitutional right. A federal ruling could either overturn all of those state bans at once; or it could establish a heightened level of scrutiny that would make the bans easier to challenge.
That’s why AFER’s case to overturn Prop 8 before the US Supreme Court is so important. And we’re closer than ever to a resolution on that case. Subscribe here on YouTube and at AFER.org for breaking news alerts and to find out how you can help support the cause of equality for all.
At the American Foundation for Equal Rights, I’m Matt Baume. We’ll see you next week.
Leave a Comment May 14, 2013
Gallup: Marriage equality supported by a clear majority of Americans
May 14, 2013
Community/Meta Marriage equality
A chart of the last 17 years of Gallup polling on marriage equality, with the newest data on the far right.
By Jacob Combs
A new Gallup poll released yesterday confirms that a majority of Americans favor marriage equality, with 53 percent saying they support equal marriage for same-sex couples and 45 percent saying they are opposed.
The new poll, conducted from May 2-7, asked respondents the following question: “Do you think marriages between same-sex couples should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages? Three percent of respondents said they had no opinion on the issue.
In a blog post announcing the poll’s results, Gallup wrote that the new data “suggests Americans’ support for gay marriage is solidifying above the majority level.” The new 53 percent figure matches two previous polls–one in May 2011 and one in November 2012–for the highest level of support Gallup has ever recorded.
In the 17 years that Gallup has been polling on marriage equality, support has essentially doubled from an initial figure of 27 percent. Just three years ago, a Gallup poll found only 44 percent support for equal marriage rights and 53 percent opposition.
While support for marriage equality has grown across all subdivisions of the U.S. population, Gallup notes that the majority of shifting opinion has occurred amongst more liberal political groups. Since the poll’s inception, Democratic support for marriage equality has grown by 36 percent and independent support by 26 percent, while Republican support has increased only by 10 percent. (The numbers for liberals, moderates and conservatives were similarly proportioned.)
In perhaps its most fascinating conclusion, Gallup’s new poll found that most Americans are unaware of public opinion on marriage equality: respondents tended to overestimate opposition to equal marriage rights for same-sex couples and underestimate support.
A remarkable 63 percent of respondents said they believe the American public opposing providing marriage rights to same-sex couples, while only 30 percent believed there was widespread support for it. This held true amongst nearly all age groups and political groups, with only liberal respondents saying that Americans as a whole support marriage equality–and even liberals underestimated the level support by several percentage points.
Gallup’s new polling data demonstrates that supporters of marriage equality may need to step up their efforts to educate Americans about the dramatic shift in public opinion over the last three years. Opposition to equal marriage rights continues to be fierce, as demonstrated by the emotional and sometimes sensational testimony that has been on display in recent weeks as Rhode Island, Delaware and Minnesota passed marriage equality legislation. News reports often include quotations from both supporters and opponents of equal marriage rights, which may further the impression that opposition marriage equality is still a majority view.
Finally, the poll found that most Americans believe that allowing same-sex couples to marry will have either no effect on society (40 percent) or will worsen society (39 percent). Nineteen percent say marriage equality will change society for the better, a number which has nearly doubled over the last decade. Over the same time period, the percentage of respondents who believe equal marriage rights will worsen society has declined 8 points, while the number of respondents who believe it will have no effect has stayed roughly the same.
Intriguingly, even the groups most support of marriage equality tended to respond that it would have no effect on society. Gallup attributes these numbers to “a more libertarian perspective that allows people to do what they want as long as it doesn’t hurt other people.”
The poll’s full results can be found here.
Leave a Comment May 14, 2013
