Two topics dominate today's Opinion pages: the California Supreme Court's validation of Proposition 8, and President Barack Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. The editorial board said the debate prompted by the Prop. 8 and the subsequent appeal has helped persuade lawmakers in other states to legalize gay marriage. The challenge for proponents in California, the board said, is to conduct a better campaign for legalization here:
Civil rights groups should be focusing their time and money on reaching out to moderate voters with information that quells misdirected fears. Contrary to what the pro-Proposition 8 ads implied, no religious group ever lost tax-exempt status over refusal to perform same-sex weddings; San Francisco students who attended their lesbian teacher's wedding had the written endorsements of their parents; gay marriage will not be forced into the California schools curriculum; and faith-based adoption agencies will continue to operate.
Columnist Tim Rutten, meanwhile, focused on the ruling itself, calling the justices' reasoning "intellectually and morally incoherent":
So, if a majority of Californians voted to "carve out a narrow exception" to California's right to privacy and applied it only to Jews, would it be constitutionally acceptable? If Native Americans were accorded all the protections of the law by a ballot proposition, except the right to marry a non-Indian, would that be legal?
This is social and moral nonsense.
Regarding Obama's Supreme Court pick, the editorial board likened Sotomayor to 2005 nominee John Roberts (whom the board supported). Her point of view wouldn't be confused with his, the board said, but she also fits "squarely within the tradition" of nominees with excellent legal credentials and views that "fall within the mainstream." On the Op-Ed side of the fold, Rutgers University professor David Greenberg speculates that Obama's choice of Sotomayor was so politically shrewd, it may have "checkmated" conservative opponents. (Backing Greenberg's thesis, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee all but ruled out a filibuster.)
Rounding out the pages, author David Wolman offers an entertaining history of American spelling rules. And readers weigh in on small cows, shrunken education budgets, reduced spending on military cargo planes and a life cut tragically short in Vernon.
Public officials come out of the woodwork to comment on high-profile news events, such as the California SupremeCourt upholding Proposition 8. Maybe they figure the public eagerly awaits the mail carrier's opinion on the matter; more likely, they're simply establishing their alliances.
Among an inbox stuffed with such statements today, one of the odder emails comes from Monica Garcia, president of the Los Angeles Unified School District board.
"And for the hundreds of thousands of LAUSD students, [the court's decision is] a lesson that reverberates in the home and through the hallways, where bullies teasing students over their sexual orientation will continue with impunity."
That sentence begs for a second and third reading. Proposition 8 has nothing to do with schools or what happens in their hallways. The L.A. school board, which Garcia heads, has everything to do with it. Surely the district's anti-bullying policies forbid harassment of gay and lesbian students. Garcia's memo, by predicting that this bullying will continue, in essence tells us that this bullying has been going on "with impunity." And the reason she cannot stop it is because of a state Supreme Court ruling on same-sex marriage?
Commenting today on Proposition 8? Fine. But it sounds like tomorrow, Garcia has some major work to do enforcing the policies in her school district. The Proposition 8 ruling constitutes a sad day for same-sex couples, but it can't be blamed for chaos in L.A. Unified's hallways.
Thank goodness Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann was re-elected to Congress last November. There was a tense moment when I feared her loony support for un-American activities investigations had hurt her chances, but the forces of liberal darkness were held at bay. For that we can all be grateful, because I hate to think of what we would have missed had her special brand of paranoia been uprooted. Under the appropriate hothouse conditions -- Barack Obama's presidency and a Democratically controlled Congress -- Bachmann's nuttiness has truly blossomed.
A few weeks ago, Bachmann fretted on KTLK radio in Minnesota that Obama would create "re-education camps for young people," saying " I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service."
Her most recent gem? The super-subtle link between Democratic presidents and the Swine Flu. And to think the rest of us missed it. Democrat in the oval office? Swine Flu! Swine Flu? Democrat in the oval office!
Here are her musings:
"I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence."
This would be barmy under any circumstances, but Republican Gerald Ford was actually president during the last outbreak.
Photo: Michele Bachmann, R-Minn, speaks to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The Minnesota court ruling awarding a disputed U.S. Senate seat to Democrat Al Franken is eliciting predictable reactions along party lines. Like his self-affirming "Saturday Night Live" character Stuart Smalley, Franken is good enough and smart enough to serve in the Senate (even though Republicans don't like him). "Good enough" is also a fair description of his victory, which is still being contested by former Sen. Norm Coleman.
Franken's victory -- like George W. Bush's in Florida in 2000 -- suggests another "enough" cliche: "Close enough for government work." Which is another way of saying that in such a close race whether Franken beat Coleman is ultimately unknowable. This is a useful reminder of a larger point: that legitimacy in democratic politics is a slippery and subjective idea.
Minnesota Republicans may think it unjust that they will be represented by Franken because of a misinterpretation of a few absentee ballots. But other Minnesotans may consider Franken illegitimate for another reason: that he won only a plurality of the vote because of the presence in his race of a third-party candidate, former Sen. Dean Barkley. So a truly democratic election would have provided for a runoff? Not so fast. Jesse Jackson argued (admittedly a generation ago and in the context of primaries) that runoff elections were quasi-racist, at least in the South, where he feared a black candidate who finished first in the original election would be edged out by a white candifdate when the field was winnowed to two.
In defense of Jackson, his position on runoffs isn't different in kind from notions we accept uncritically -- such as that Congress should be composed of seats won by the candidate who got a majority (or a plurality) of the vote. Winner-take-all is American as apple pie (it's called "first past the post" in Britain), but it's less democratic than the various forms of proportional representation used in some European countries and in Israel.
If the U.S. followed the Israeli system, in which even small parties are represented in the Knesset in proportion to the votes they receive, we'd have a more representative Congress -- and a more dysfunctional one, with Democrats and Republicans sharing space with Libertarians, Afrocentrists, Aryan Nationers, creationists, a few Marxists, maybe even a PETA representative or two.
Al Franken's supporters, like George Bush's in 2000, are loath to argue that some things are more important than democracy. But that's the best argument for sending Franken to Washington even if only God knows if he edged Coleman. The consolation for Coleman voters is that, even if their man "really" won, this wouldn't be the first time that democracy was trumped by other imperatives. Like stable government, two-party rule and giving Minnesota a second senator.
One of my favorite lines about the law comes from a professor I had years ago: Referring to famous Supreme Court decisions, he said: "We don't read the great cases; the great cases read us."
So do the not-so-great cases. The Justice Department's agreement to void former Sen. Ted Stevens' corruption conviction has generated an array of interpretations, some more convincing than others, that have seized on the breaking news to make larger points.
I agree with my colleague Jon Healey that Stevens' good luck is not an exoneration of the politics of pork he personified. I disagree with the suggestion by Gov. Sarah Palin that the Democrat who beat Stevens after his conviction should resign to prepare the way for a rematch in which, presumably, Stevens could argue that he should be returned to the Senate because of errors by the prosecution. (Usually Republicans don't like to see defendants set free on legal "technicalities," let alone get another shot at a Senate seat.)
I also think it's a stretch for the New York Times editorial writers to try to connect the ineptitude of prosecutors in the Stevens trial with the Bush Justice Department's supposed conspiracy against Democratic politicians. More plausible (though still a bit contrived) is the argument by former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer that the bungling of the Stevens prosecution is part of a larger phenomenon of overzealous prosecutors -- including Patrick Fitzgerald -- and loosely written anti-corruption statutes.
My own take is more modest: Stevens' conviction is being set aside because the government goofed. Any regular viewer of "Law and Order" knows that the prosecution is obliged to give the defense evidence -- like prosecutors' notes of an interview with a witness against Stevens -- that might help the defense. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes a screwup is just a screwup.
A California Supreme Court justice found the idea intriguing. So did the Times editorial board: To ensure equal marriage rights, the state of California could consider getting out of the marriage business altogether, performing and recognizing civil unions for all. People who want marriage could go to the church or other private group of their choice, and those churches or groups would be free to recognize only the marriages that fit within their beliefs.
Practically within moments after Justice Ming W. Chin posed that scenario to lawyers on both sides of the Proposition 8 debate, two college students from Studio City stepped into the fray. They received permission from the Secretary of State to circulate petitions for an initiative to do that very thing: Substitute "domestic partnership" for "marriage" in state law and while we're at it, undo Proposition 8. My first questions were of the more substantive sort, like, shouldn't we talk about this for awhile first? Would we be undoing the marriages of people who opted for a civil ceremony in earlier years and figured they were married good and proper? What would happen to joint tax filings for the federal government? And wouldn't "civil union" be a more acceptable term to voters than "domestic partnership"?
Then I read the proposed initiative in its entirety and realized that my worries might be a little premature. The real questions are, Just how easy is it to get permission to circulate petitions for an initiatives? Shouldn't the wording have to pass some sort of writing test?
The proposed measure calls for the term "marriage" to be removed from government legislation. The State of California's Law code would have "marriage" replaced with "domestic partnership," while the definition and rights provided would remain the same. The purpose of which is to provide quality amongst all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, without offending the religious sect. Legally speaking, "Marriage" itself would become a social ceremony, recognized by only non-governmental institutions. Furthermore, the initiative would void Proposition 8."
Ali Shams, one of the two authors and a senior at UC San Diego, told me that he and pal Kaelan Housewright were operating via Facebook, though they would get an Internet page going soon, and were posting copies of the petition online in the hopes that volunteers would print them and collect 1.2 million signatures. The new faces of politics. At least they're involved in the process.
The editorial board finds intriguing an idea raised about Proposition 8 during Thursday's state Supreme Court hearing: Having the state recognize only civil unions, while couples take their marriage vows at the religious or other private institution of their choice.
But just as marriage and family traditions have altered dramatically -- with shorter and more frequent marriages in a lifetime, couples living outside the married state and prenuptial agreements that trump customary family agreements -- it is time to consider an altered state role in domestic legalities. Justice Chin opened the discussion, and it is worth continuing.
The board also says the economy isn't a good reason to deny California a clean-air waiver to regulate greenhouse gases. In fact, the board says, Detroit will ultimately benefit from the production of more fuel-efficient cars. The board also calls on the world community to stand behind the International Criminal Court's warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir on charges of war crimes related to the atrocities in Darfur.
On the other side of the fold, writer Joe Queenan tells the investment experts to pipe down about the long-term value of stocks; this is indeed the time to panic. And columnist Joel Stein fantastizes about the up side of unemployment.
The Cal Channel, available through cable TV and live streaming over the Internet, generally presents such yawners as the meeting of the Joint Assembly Utilities and Commerce and Natural Resources Committee. It isn't set up for streaming that draws large numbers of people, so would-be Internet viewers have had a frustrating morning. If the state Supreme Court continues to do interesting things like broadcast its hearings, Cal Channel will need a server with more muscle.
Meanwhile, the Sacramento Bee is offering the live streaming online. It gets stopped up sometimes, but it's better than going via Cal Channel.
Justice Joyce Kennard asks a key question about whether the court has ever held that a constitutional revision must involve solely a sweeping change to the organizational structure of state government. Up to this point, the only cases in which the court has found a law to be an illegal revision have involved long, complicated changes to the organization of government; in order to find Proposition 8 a revision, it would have to decide that a narrow change to civil rights would also constitute a revision.
The answer, she suggests, is no. Christopher Krueger, representing Attorney General Jerry Brown, argues that Proposition 8 is an amendment, but an illegal one. Just to make it clear, Brown wants Proposition 8 struck down, but on the grounds that it revokes an inalienable right without a compelling cause. Krueger's argument against revision is that the court hasn't ruled that way in the past.
Justice Ming W. Chin raises a point during the hearing that has been much discussed by the editorial board, as well as posited by our readers: What if the state didn't bother with recognizing or performing marriage at all, but instead performed civil unions for all, recognized them with all the same rights, and left marriage to religious and other private organizations to define and perform as they wished?
The question disappeared rather quickly from the courtroom, but it's one that the editorial board expects to pursue.
This blog is the work of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, the cadre of opinionated reporters and editors responsible for the paper's daily stack of unsigned editorials. Also contributing is Times columnist Patt Morrison, well-known lover of millinery. Please note -- the posts you see here reflect the views of the author, not of the editorial board as a whole.
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