Hardly anyone noticed when the U.S. Supreme Court said in 1997 that it had "grave doubts" that the sponsors of a ballot measure - in that case, an English-only initiative for government agencies in Arizona - had the right to defend the law in federal court.
Now that case could determine the future of same-sex marriage in California.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which will hear arguments in December on a federal judge's ruling that overturned Proposition 8, has asked both sides to address the question of whether the campaign committee for the November 2008 initiative has legal standing - the right to represent the state's interests in upholding one of its laws.
If the answer is yes, the court will then decide whether Prop. 8, which defined marriage as the union of a man and a woman, violated gays' and lesbians' constitutional right to wed and discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation, as Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled Aug. 4.
--snip--
Although the Arizona ruling remains an obstacle for Prop. 8's sponsors, whether it dooms the measure is an open question, said Jane Schacter, a Stanford law professor.
The sponsors' strongest argument, she said, is that elected officials shouldn't be allowed to "undermine initiatives they don't support by choosing not to defend them. That would raise questions about direct democracy."
On the other hand, Schacter said, "elected officials, accountable to the voters, make litigation decisions for the state," determining which laws to defend and which rulings to appeal.
Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/18/MN541EVBEP.DTLArizona? That same state with:
-
Proposition 200 (2004) that required proof of citizenship for public services, and
- SB1070, the law that made it a crime for immigrants not to carry ID.
The case in question is
Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona (1997).
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