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I remain confused. Can someone explain to me how the CA Supreme Court has any jurisdiction whatsoever in this matter? The people have spoken through their constitutional right of initiative and referendum—to OVERRIDE the CASC. My legal opinion is that they are DONE. How can they claim jurisdiction to reinsert themselves now?

Bingo.

The CASC has a massive “conflict of interest” and should recuse themselves, immediately.

The CA Supreme Court has two avenues they can follow that justify their insertion here.

First, the referendum process can amend the state constitution, but cannot revise it. Revisions must go through the standard process, originating in the legislature. There is no actual guidance on the difference between amending and revising. The courts have ruled in the past that a revision is a larger rewriting, affecting multiple areas of the Constitution. By that criteria, prop 8 appears to be OK, but since the amendment/revision criteria is pretty much at the Court’s discretion, they do have room to insert themselves.

The other way they can insert themselves is to claim that prop 8 violates the federal constitution. Given that DOMA is current law, this seems unlikely. Yes, they’re a state court, but I understand they are allowed to rule on the federal issues, or maybe it was passing it to a federal court - a friend went over these with me, I might be messing up this second point.

Hope that answers your question,

Drew Garrett

I remain confused. Can someone explain to me how the CA Supreme Court has any jurisdiction whatsoever in this matter? The people have spoken through their constitutional right of initiative and referendum—to OVERRIDE the CASC. My legal opinion is that they are DONE. How can they claim jurisdiction to reinsert themselves now?

In California, there's a rule that a 'revision' of the state Constitution must be proposed by the Legislature. A revision would be a more substantial change than an amendment. The claim is that since Prop 8 removed a fundamental right, proclaimed by the state Supreme Court just this summer, it is a revision, and hence invalid, since proper procedure was not followed.

Yes, as a new citizen I’m also confused. Two years in a row (2006 and 2007) the “people”, through their elected representatives in Sacramento, passed a law to legalize gay marriage. Yet each time the will of the “people” was overturned by one man — the Governator. What’s up with that? So which branch really expresses the “will” of the “people”? Is it 1) their elected representative government, or 2) their ballot initiatives, or 3) their legal judicial system, or 4) their governor?? It seems to me this country has too many mechanisms that all work in conflict with each other, yet they are all “legal”. Is that what democracy refers to as “checks and balances”? And if you argue that the ballot initives always take priority, then why don’t we just do away with representative government and the courts, and put every decision to a bollot? Just asking ...