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A silver lining?
No, not the wait for mail-in ballots to be counted in the Prop 8 vote. If all the numbers are true (3,000,000 outstanding mail-in ballots, a 400,000 ballot deficit) we need a 15 point advantage against in the mail-in ballots. That's pretty unlikely. Of course, once we get a report from the Secretary of State on outstanding ballots (currently the report is blank) we'll find out if any of this is even possible, much less likely. I don't expect that for days; they just got their website back up and functioning fully.
The silver lining is the ACLU's suit that the amendment initiative exceeds the boundaries of an amendment, and instead is a "revision" to the constitution. Seeing that suit win would warm the cockles of my heart. Why?
Well, "Yes on 8" burned up $40million that could have been spent by evangelicals and Mormons on other races. That's nationally significant dollars. That's more than Republican campaigns went into debt this race. Sure, "No on 8" burned up money that could have been used in other progressive campaigns, but thanks to Obama's charm and fundraising skills it wasn't needed. I would love to see all that money wasted on an initiative that was struck down.
That's not what's going to make me dance a happy dance if the courts do strike the initiative down, though. What will make me dance a happy dance is that, if the courts strike down Prop 8 on the grounds that it's a "revision" rather than an "amendment" that pretty much kills any chances future initiatives on the subject have. It raises the bar to a level that other states haven't been able to defeat, and well above the current 52% that Prop 8 could muster.
Will it happen?
I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment. That said, the courts have struck down initiatives on just these grounds; there is legal precedent.
The silver lining is the ACLU's suit that the amendment initiative exceeds the boundaries of an amendment, and instead is a "revision" to the constitution. Seeing that suit win would warm the cockles of my heart. Why?
Well, "Yes on 8" burned up $40million that could have been spent by evangelicals and Mormons on other races. That's nationally significant dollars. That's more than Republican campaigns went into debt this race. Sure, "No on 8" burned up money that could have been used in other progressive campaigns, but thanks to Obama's charm and fundraising skills it wasn't needed. I would love to see all that money wasted on an initiative that was struck down.
That's not what's going to make me dance a happy dance if the courts do strike the initiative down, though. What will make me dance a happy dance is that, if the courts strike down Prop 8 on the grounds that it's a "revision" rather than an "amendment" that pretty much kills any chances future initiatives on the subject have. It raises the bar to a level that other states haven't been able to defeat, and well above the current 52% that Prop 8 could muster.
Will it happen?
I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment. That said, the courts have struck down initiatives on just these grounds; there is legal precedent.
More analysis of the legal position
Here's some more analysis of the legal position(s) being taken against Prop 8:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_11_02-2008_11_08.shtml#1226036505
Interesting stuff to read through. In particular is the analogies which essentially replace "gays" with Mormons or blacks in regard to stripping them of marriage rights.
Madoc
Re: More analysis of the legal position
"Equal Protection" would be the grounds under which an argument to strike down the amendment because it violated the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution would likely be argued at the US Supreme Court, but nobody wants to take it there yet. The nice thing is that the existence of civil unions create a "separate but equal" structure, which plays nicely with the precedent created by "Brown v. Board of Education." The ugly thing is Justices Thomas, Scalia and to a only slightly lesser extent Roberts and Alito.