Challenge to Prop 8 filed

[mdlbear]

American Civil Liberties Union : Legal Groups File Lawsuit Challenging Proposition 8, Should It Pass

SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid.
[...]
This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the "Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States." That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California's courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state's constitution.

I like this. It's straightforward, unambiguous, and best of all has nothing at all to do with gay rights. It's purely procedural.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Best of luck to it!

[asavitzk.livejournal.com]

That's a great approach.

[brmj.livejournal.com]

This looks like it should work.

I just wish that we didn't have to use just procedural things to throw out intolerant, discriminatory crap like proposition 8. It would sure be nice if more people realized taking away other people's rights was wrong.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

a big "hell yeah" to that...

[mdlbear]

When 50% of the electorate side with bigotry and lies you take what you can get.

[carmiel.livejournal.com]

Yay!! The fight continues.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

What the hell, as long as it works. They got Al Capone on tax evasion charges, didn't they?