Brief Episode

There are several new lawsuits on the California Supreme Court website.  Including a lawsuit from a group of minority advocacy organizations, which want the constitutionality answered about amending the California constitution to remove fundamental civil rights from an unpopular minority.

Meanwhile, as of today, the justices have narrowed the suits and the questions they’ll answer.

The legal questions they’re considering:

• is Proposition 8 legal as an amendment? or is it really a revision, which cannot be done by a voter initiative?
• does Proposition 8 break the doctrine of the separation of powers? petitions maintain it does.
• are the marriages made between June and November 4th still legal marriages today if Proposition 8 is decided as legal?

My predictions, in reverse order:

The marriages will be legal.  The separation of powers issue will make or break the constitutionality of Prop 8.

Oh, and completely intuitive and hopeful breakdown of the voting:  5 justices will say Proposition 8 sucks legally and goes into the trash, and 2 don’t.  The 5 will include the 5 justices who voted for marriage equality and a new justice who didn’t but doesn’t want to have the Supreme Court over-ruled by ballot initiatives the preclude judicial review.

In other news, the court also decided that the Fund people I mentioned earlier aren’t entitled to participate in the suit (except as friends of the court) while the people who organized and funded Prop 8 and have all that money, are entitled to argue their case before the court.

The minority groups haven’t been addressed yet.

And the biggest news? The court didn’t grant a stay of Prop 8.  Opponents tried to get Prop 8 lifted while this is decided, which could take a while.

I’m betting we’ll have an anwer on all these counts before February 14th.