After claiming he was just gathering information, Walker conducted a show trial (which he wanted to televise) and then decided to issue a ruling that was designed not only to neuter marriage licensing, but disenfranchise millions of voters, attack fathers and mothers, and attack established, fabric-of-the-community religious institutions.
Now he's trying to prevent a fair chance at an appeal of his decision. Maura Dolan and Lee Romney reported on this LATimes.com blog that with Governor Schwarzenegger and Attorney General Jerry Brown having taken a dive early on, Walker wrote:
"As it appears at least doubtful that proponents will be able to proceed with their appeal without a state defendant, it remains unclear whether the Court of Appeals will be able to reach the merits of proponents' appeal," Walker wrote.A county sued for an appeal, but Walker removed them.
"In light of those concerns, proponents may have little choice but to attempt to convince either the governor or the attorney general to file an appeal to ensure jurisdiction."How convenient. Remove everyone who wants to appeal in an effort to make sure there isn't one.
Walker said there was no evidence that the sponsors of Prop. 8 "face the kind of injury" required to have standing to file an appeal.Voting? Tenth Amendment? What about hurt feelings? That seemed to be enough to rule as you did.
"The uncertainty surrounding proponents' standing weighs heavily against the likelihood of their success," he wrote.
Heads I win, tails you lose. Pick a card, any card – it doesn't matter because the deck has been stacked.
Then the blog ran a couple of pieces by Esmerlda Bermudez about same-sex couples who decided to structure their entire day around the assumption that they would be able to get a marriage license today – or at least get overly sympathetic media attention. See this one and see "Couple Left Standing at the Altar by Prop. 8 Ruling".
These yellow journalism tactics are so sickening. People behaving foolishly and assuming (or acting like they're assuming) everybody else is alway going to do what they want, when they want should not be rewarded with sympathetic portrayals. Guess what? We have laws and procedures, and despite your numerous legal victories at the expense of representative, constitutional government and good sense, not everything is always going to go according to your whims.Bruce Mayhall and Tom Rastrelli were the first in line Thursday morning at the Beverly Hills Courthouse, ready to get a marriage license if good news came down from Judge Vaughn Walker.
They dressed in matching pink shirts and waited.
As the hours passed, they watched heterosexual couple after heterosexual couple -- decked out in suits and white dresses -- pass them in line to get married.
Not only did Walker remove the Imperial County from intervening on behalf of Prop 8, he waited until there was no time to appeal their exclusion before he lifted his own stay (based in part on there being no state entity involved).
ReplyDeleteThe more I read about this, I see unfolding a carefully laid plan. I see where Walker expected to get away with it all.
This isn't unlike the gaming that was done in many (if not all) of the judicial opinions on this matter. Remember that Goodridge put a stay on their ruling that would purposefully run under the people's ability in Massachusetts to amend their constitution.
Also, when that arbitrary decision was appealed, they somehow found themselves the only ones with the authority to rule on it, so it couldn't be the wrong thing to do.
It gets worse. Reading the Prop 8 stay request we learn that it took Walker mere weeks to accept the request for the city and county of San Fransisco to intervene against Prop 8 before the trial began.
ReplyDeleteAnd, remember Newsome's great stand? They were slapped down in acting on their own, they needed to gain constitutional guidance by suing for it from the courts. When Imperial County asked to do the same thing, that is when they were turned down.