Just received this email from Equality California.

The California Supreme Court’s press release has some great information, including:

• A list of cable companies that carry California Network, which will broadcast the oral arguments live

Oddly, they’ve broken down the oral argument time into three hours, with each of the lawsuit plaintiff lawyers receiving 30 minutes (for 90 minutes for angel’s advocates).  The attorney general will receive 30 minutes, but has been directed to spend half of his time arguing in support of prop 8, and half his time against prop 8.

Remember, he argued it both ways in his briefs, that proposition 8 isn’t a revision (one of the key questions the Court asked him to answer) but that it shouldn’t be constitutional anyway.

Let’s hope that the angels win and there’s no need for any more ballot initiatives to fix prop 8.  In case you’ve forgotten, 90 days is the legal requirement for the California Supreme Court to render a decision after oral argument has been completed.

This means there will be an answer on or before Wednesday, June 3, 2009.

Text below from Equality California’s email.

BREAKING NEWS!
California Supreme Court to Hear Oral Arguments
in Prop 8 Legal Challenge on March 5

The California Supreme Court announced today that it will hear oral arguments on Thursday, March 5, 2009 in the Proposition 8 legal challenge.

On November 19, 2008, the California Supreme Court agreed to hear the legal challenges to Proposition 8 and set an expedited schedule. Briefing in the case was completed on January 21, 2009. The California Supreme Court must issue its decisions within 90 days of oral argument.

On January 15, 2009, 43 friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Court to invalidate Prop 8 were filed, arguing that Proposition 8 drastically alters the equal protection guarantee in California’s Constitution and that the rights of a minority cannot be eliminated by a simple majority vote. The supporters represent the full gamut of California’s and the nation’s civil rights organizations and legal scholars, as well as California legislators, local governments, bar associations, business interests, labor unions, and religious groups.

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court held that laws that treat people differently based on their sexual orientation violate the equal protection clause of the California Constitution and that same-sex couples have the same fundamental right to marry as other Californians. Proposition 8 eliminated this fundamental right only for same-sex couples. No other initiative has ever successfully changed the California Constitution to take away a right only from a targeted minority group. Proposition 8 passed by a bare majority of 52 percent on November 4.

The National Center for Lesbian Rights, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU filed this challenge on November 5, representing Equality California, whose members include many same-sex couples who married between June 16 and November 4, 2008, and six same-sex couples who want to marry in California. The California Supreme Court has also agreed to hear two other challenges filed on the same day: one filed by the City and County of San Francisco (joined by Santa Clara County and the City of Los Angeles, and subsequently by Los Angeles County and other local governments); and another filed by a private attorney.

Serving as co-counsel on the case with NCLR, Lambda Legal, and the ACLU are the Law Office of David C. Codell, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP.

The case is Strauss et al. v. Horton et al. (#S168047).

So there’s some good news.  Although it’s predictable, it’s nonetheless good.  Proposition 8 supporters who donated money were denied special rights to anonymity.

It’s interesting to note that the Proposition 8 people are going to the U.S. District court to “overturn the will of the people.”  You see, the 1974 Political Reform Act was a California ballot initiative.  And the Prop 8 people are saying that the ballot initiative is unconstitutional.

Now, I believe that Prop 8 is unconstitutional as a constitutional amendment.  I’m hoping the California Supreme Court judges will agree.  But it’s so ironic that the people arguing that the voters are the ultimate judges and should dictate the rights of the minority are here arguing that no, the voters voted in 1974 for an unconstitutional law.

Proposition 8 proponents’ complaint that a California campaign-finance disclosure law has led to harassment of same-sex marriage opponents failed to sway a federal judge, who refused Thursday to throw out the law or shield donors’ names.

…

“If there ever needs to be sunshine on a particular issue, it’s a ballot measure,” U.S. District Judge Morrison England said after a one-hour hearing in his Sacramento courtroom.

…

He argued that the $100 disclosure requirement – adopted by California voters in 1974 – should be struck down, modified to raise the dollar limits, or at least not applied to Prop. 8′s contributors. As a first step, Coleson said, the campaign should be exempted from the state’s post-election contribution report, due Monday.

Get that? Everyone else who donates money since 1974 in California should have their donation records publicly available, but not the Proposition 8 people.  No! They have a special right to privacy.

And who are they comparing themselves to to argue for this right?

The U.S. Supreme Court upheld campaign disclosure laws in 1976 but ruled in 1982 that the Socialist Workers Party in Ohio could shield its donors’ names because of a history of attacks and reprisals.

Protect Marriage argued that it was entitled to the same exemption because of retaliation against some of its contributors, but lawyers for the state said the two cases weren’t comparable. They noted that the Prop. 8 campaign raised nearly $30 million from 36,000 donors.

So let’s get this straight (pardon the pun).  The California Supreme Court ruled that gay, lesbian and bisexual people have historically been subject to persecution and are thus a suspect class deserving strict scrutiny for laws limiting their rights (meaning, the bar is very high for the government to justify unequal treatment).  Now, the Proposition 8 people are comparing themselves to socialists, who received an exemption from a similar law in Ohio.  Why? Because socialists have been historically persecuted in the US, so they need extra protection in the form of anonymity to participate in democracy.

I’m not so sure I agree with that (mulling it over), but that’s the rationale they gave for the exemption.

What about the Proposition 8 donors? They’re not minority group that’s been historically persecuted.  They’re part of the majority that’s donating to persecute a minority group!

[Deputy Attorney General Zackery Morazzini] noted that some of the reprisals reported by the Prop. 8 committee involve legal activities such as boycotts and picketing. Other alleged actions, such as death threats, mailings of white powder and vandalism, may constitute “repugnant and despicable acts” but can be reported to law enforcement, the judge said.

So let’s look at this again.  The Proposition 8 people allege that they’ve been threatened with illegal behavior.  But there are no lawsuits.  Compare this with the recent hate crimes in California against gay and lesbian citizens.  People are actually being found and tried, such as the gang rape suspects who targeted, kidnapped, raped and robbed and assaulted a woman who had a rainbow flag on her car in a gay neighborhood in San Francisco.

There’s no comparison.

But they still feel persecuted somehow.  Or are arguing for special rights to anonymity.

Referring to the donors whose names will appear in Monday’s public report, campaign spokesman Frank Schubert said England’s ruling “puts 1,600 people in harm’s way.”

Yes, so 1,600 people donated to strip fundamental rights from a historically persecuted minority group.  And the Prop 8 lawyers are right now arguing that 18,000 married people and their children should lose their marital and family rights and obligations — which would be a sure thing.  But the 1,600 people should become anonymous so that they might not get fake white powder or have people who don’t want to buy their goods or services.

Astounding.

[Quoting from Prop. 8 campaign can't hide donors' names]

Proposition 8

Today, as expected, Ken Starr (yeah, that one) filed a new brief in response to California Attorney General’s recent brief against proposition 8.

He relied in major part on one thing I find a bit ironic: trust in the people.  Meaning, just because the majority of Californian voters want to treat the gays as less than equal in marriage doesn’t mean that they will want to take away other rights of the gays and lesbians and other minority groups.

Um, hello?

The amicus letters already filed, and especially the separate petition by the Asian conglomeration of organizations, points out just how terrible the majority of Californians have been in the past.

He calls it unwarranted fears.  We call it maize.

Although not a fan of Starr, what I found most compelling is this:

The Attorney General does not cite a single California case suggesting that the judiciary has authority to strike down properly-enacted amendments to the Constitution for violating article I, section 1 or undefined notions of inalienable rights or natural justice.

In other words, Brown’s argument is so new that he couldn’t find a single case anywhere in California’s history of major law suits to support the argument.

Leading with that fact, Starr goes on to try to undermine the argument.  I find a lot of that kind of hoakey, like the unwarranted fears bit.  The fears are so warranted by everyone involved that it’s kind of unbelievable that he would be able to argue that with a straight face (no pun intended).