{"id":624,"date":"2011-01-12T03:55:31","date_gmt":"2011-01-12T08:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=624"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","slug":"ninth-circuit-decides-proposition-8-case-sorta-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/01\/12\/ninth-circuit-decides-proposition-8-case-sorta-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ninth Circuit Decides Proposition 8 Case. Sorta."},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Stephan<\/em><\/p>\n

Perry v. Schwarzenegger<\/em>, the weighty gay marriage case involving California\u2019s Proposition 8, took a step toward completion last week when the Ninth Circuit\u00a0ordered certification of a question about standing to the California Supreme Court<\/a>.\u00a0 Proposition 8, which was deemed unconstitutional by a federal district court last August, provides that \u201c[o]nly marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.\u201d<\/p>\n

The issue of standing pertains to whether the appellants have a sufficient interest or authority with which to defend the constitutionality of Proposition 8.\u00a0 The appellants are the official \u201cproponents\u201d of Proposition 8\u2014i.e., the five Californians who originally placed the initiative on the statewide ballot in 2008.\u00a0 These proponents were not named defendants in the district court case, but they were nevertheless permitted to defend Proposition 8 as intervenors.\u00a0 Because the named defendants\u2014all of whom were state officers\u2014declined to appeal the district court decision, the question remains as to whether the defendants-intervenors-appellants have standing to appeal.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit\u2019s order asks the California Supreme Court whether, under California law, the proponents of an initiative have \u201ceither a particularized interest in the initiative\u2019s validity or the authority to assert the State\u2019s interest in the initiative\u2019s validity, which would enable them to defend the constitutionality of the initiative . . . when the public officials charged with that duty refuse to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the California Supreme Court holds that initiative proponents do, in fact, possess a sufficient interest or authority to defend their initiative\u2019s constitutionality, then the\u00a0Perry<\/em>\u00a0appellants will have standing and the Ninth Circuit will reach the case\u2019s merits.\u00a0 If not, then the Ninth Circuit will lack the power to consider the merits and the appeal will be dismissed.\u00a0 As the Ninth Circuit\u2019s order notes, it is unclear what dismissal of the appeal will mean for the fate of Proposition 8.<\/p>\n

Along with its order, the Ninth Circuit panel also issued a separate,\u00a0per curiam opinion<\/a>\u00a0dismissing for lack of standing an appeal in a companion case.\u00a0 Judge Reinhardt filed a\u00a0concurrence<\/a>\u00a0to the order and the opinion, as well as a\u00a0memo explaining his decision not to recuse himself<\/a>\u00a0from the appeals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Stephan Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the weighty gay marriage case involving California\u2019s Proposition 8, took a step toward completion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-a4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}