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Proposition 8 Ruling Pending (Sort Of)
The California Supreme Court has announced that they will issue a ruling/advisory opinion tomorrow regarding Proposition 8. But this will not be a ruling on the validity of Proposition 8 nor will it be a binding ruling.
To briefly explain.
The 9th Circuit Court Of Appeals (or more directly a 3 judge panel from the court) asked the California Supreme Court to offer its opinion on the issue of standing with regard to the parties who stepped in to defend Proposition 8 when it was challenged.
Standing is basically the idea that you need to have some interest at stake to be involved in a case. For example assume you are driving down the street and witness a car accident. One of the drivers sues the other for damages and the defendant chooses not to fight the case. You think that the defendant is innocent so you decide to go to court and fight the case out.
The judge in that case would say that you don’t have the right to do that because you have no real interest at stake. It’s not your accident and you have no legal right to act on behalf of the defendant unless he lets you, and perhaps not even then.
In the case of Proposition 8, those opposed to the law sued the state of California on various grounds and the state ultimately decided not to defend itself. In essence it acted like our hypothetical defendant.
When this happened various parties, including one California county, chose to step in and fight the lawsuit.
The question thus arises, did they have the right to do so ? If the state is sued over the validity of a law and the state doesn’t argue the point, can someone else step in or do the plaintiffs simply win ?
This is the issue that the 9th Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to offer its opinion on and that will be the subject of the ruling tomorrow.
Once the ruling/opinion is issued then the 3 judge panel of the Federal court will review the issue, taking into account both the California Supreme Court opinion and other legal opinions and evidence. It will then decide the issue for itself and that opinion will be binding.
But the opinion will almost certainly be appealed to the full Appeals Court and probably from there to the US Supreme Court so there will be many more months of decisions and debates.
As to what the various courts will decide, it is hard to say but the general consensus seems to be that the Federal Appeals court panel will most likely follow the guidance of the California Supreme Court and that both the full Appeals Court and the US Supreme Court will do the same.
Looking to the California Supreme Court I tend to think they will rule that the defendants in the case did not have standing. There is a long line of court doctrine in both the state and federal courts holding that if the state is sued over a law and chooses not to defend it then nobody else can step in.
If that is indeed the ruling then we may have the equivalent of a bunt, Proposition 8 will fall because the defendants either did not respond to the lawsuit (as in the state of California) or did not have standing to respond (as in the case of the current defendants).
But the broader issue of whether the original Walker opinion that held the law itself was unconstitutional will not be decided.
However I’ve long learned that you should never try to pre-guess what a court will do.
4 Responses to “Proposition 8 Ruling Pending (Sort Of)”
Great article. Isn’t this a bit of an over-simplification of the standing that at stake here though? My understanding is that citizens can step in for the state if they do have a direct interest and can show harm. If Proposition 8 was protecting homeowners and the state decided not to appeal, than homeowners (or a group representing them) would have standing. I thought the problem here was that beyond some very vague arguments about straight marriages supposedly decaying, the proponents of Prop 8 are not directly harmed by its nullification. Can you clarify this at all?
First off sorry for the short post, it’s been a crazy week at work and I’ve got a cold.
As to the issue at hand, when a state law is challenged the general principle is that only the state can defend it.
There was a 1997 US Supreme Court case in which the state of Arizona did not defend a challenge to a law making the official language English.
The Supreme court did not rule directly on the issue but strongly suggested that private citizens did not have standing to defend the law themselves (and the ruling was unanimous.
We will know more tomorrow of course when the state Supreme Court issues its advisory opinion.
Thank you for the response Patrick. Tomorrow should be an interesting day.
Well, if they do, then it will be very interesting to see their take on a problem that arises. The initiative process exists for the voters to do something that the state officials won’t do. But this means that simply be getting someone to sue and doing nothing, they can overturn any proposition they want.