Bring On The Supremes

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The news reports that several California cities intend to challenge PROP 8 in the California Supreme Court. This means it will end up in the US Supreme Court.

 

[AchtungNight]

Oh boy. Hope they overturn it. Probably won't happen but one can dream.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Eventually someone will argue that gay rights is a 14th Amendment issue, then roll the dice with the US Supreme Court. Could be a problem.

 

[R. Richard]

The news reports that several California cities intend to challenge PROP 8 in the California Supreme Court. This means it will end up in the US Supreme Court.

If someone, anyone wants to file a lawsuit, they must have standing in the matter. In order to have standing in a civil matter, the party filing the lawsuit must prove injury. A city can't really be injured by a marriage matter. Individual citzens in the city can be injured and can file legal action. It might be that a city could file a class action suit on behalf of its injured citizens, but the normal situation would be for the injured citizens to file and not the city. [I'm not a lawyer.]

I would think that a city would most likely participate by filing an Amica Curiae Brief. Trying to represent only a portion of the city's citizens could leave the city with legal problems of their own.

It will be interesting to see how things actually play out.

 

[Carnevil9]

The voice of the people be damned!! Let's have five judges overturn the will of five million voters......Carney

 

[DeeZire]

The voice of the people be damned!! Let's have five judges overturn the will of five million voters......Carney

If the voters are always right, we never would have gotten rid of slavery.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

DEE ZIRE

We ended slavery because its cheaper to pay a worker wages than it is to support his entire family.

Believe it or dont, but this propostion was advocated in the Southern newspapers prior to secession. The fly in the ointment, of course, was economic abandonment of women with children and old people. When emancipation came they were on their own, losing their guaranteed food, clothing, shelter, and medical care.

Emancipation was a godsend to the planter and hell for the freedman.

During Reconstruction the Federal Government authorized officials in the South to force blacks to work. Vagrancy laws were created. If you didnt work you were leased to contractors. The state got a fee and you got the lash. Even young children were arrested and leased. I've seen photos of youngsters in their striped convict frocks.

It ended when voters became outraged with the abuse and deaths of the inmates.

 

[Weird Harold]

I would think that a city would most likely participate by filing an Amica Curiae Brief. Trying to represent only a portion of the city's citizens could leave the city with legal problems of their own.

A city can gain standing for a challenge by issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, which puts the City in violation of Prop 8 as well as those applying for the licenses.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

No doubt someone will stir the shit up and create a stench that lasts too long.

It would be a lot quicker for gays to loosen their monolithic obedience to their liberal masters.

 

[xssve]

The voice of the people be damned!! Let's have five judges overturn the will of five million voters......Carney

The constitution does not define or include the right to arbitrarily deny other people their rights, it's one of those rule of law things, which does not mean you can just rule by fiat if you can seize control of the judicial apparatus.

Hard to say with this Court, they overturned Texas sodomy statutes, with Scalia being most firmly in the Borkian mode - that was before Roberts appointment, but Roberts replaced Rehnquist as Chief Justice, and Rehnquist would have been against it anyway, Thomas just sticks to the party line.

 

[R. Richard]

A city can gain standing for a challenge by issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples, which puts the City in violation of Prop 8 as well as those applying for the licenses.

At least in CA [and I suspect that it's the same pretty much everywhere] a marriage license is a state document. Thus, a city doesn't actually issue a marriage license, the state does. Some time back the City of San Francisco tried to issue their own same sex marriage licenses and the state shot them down. Actually, the City of San Francisco was guilty of the crime of uttering. Of course, the State of California didn't prosecute the officials of the City of San Francisco.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

When the Usual Suspects show up at the Supreme Court theyre gonna be told they can marry boys or girls like everyone else.

 

[Weird Harold]

At least in CA [and I suspect that it's the same pretty much everywhere] a marriage license is a state document.

A State document, but in any jurisdiction I've dealt with they're issued and recorded by the County Clerk's office and/or the Municipal (JoP) Courts.

It would depend I guess on just how intertwined county and municpal functions are how much standing a "city" can gain, but the people who control issuance aren't state employees even though the certificate itself conforms to state standards.

 

[Carnevil9]

If the voters are always right, we never would have gotten rid of slavery.

Excellent point! The voters might be wrong. So let's throw Obama out on his ass and make Rush Limbaugh the new POTUS. After all, the voters are not always right.......Carney (who loves when people like to have it both ways)

 

[DeeZire]

Carney - you're reaching here. If the people want to pass a unconstitutional law, they must first change the constitution. It's just the way democracy works. Your example is totally irrelevant, but you already knew that.

 

[Luke's Angel]

The voice of the people be damned!! Let's have five judges overturn the will of five million voters......Carney

The US Constitution trumps the laws of the States. A State may not make a law which violates the Constitution of the United States.

 

[Weird Harold]

The US Constitution trumps the laws of the States. A State may not make a law which violates the Constitution of the United States.

Actually, I think they can pass laws contrary to the US constitution, they just can't enforce them.

One of the ballot measures on the Nevada ballot was an ammendment to the state consitution to remove a six-month residency requirement for voter registration because SCOTUS rule anything over 30 days is unconstitutionally excessive. The measure failed -- so it's still our wish to require a six-month residency before voting even if we aren't allowed to enforce it at this time.

 

[xssve]

Excellent point! The voters might be wrong. So let's throw Obama out on his ass and make Rush Limbaugh the new POTUS. After all, the voters are not always right.......Carney (who loves when people like to have it both ways)

You mean like whining about the "dictatorship of the masses" out of one side of your mouth and screaming "majority rules" out of the other?

We got a solution for all that, it's called "constitutional rule of law".