Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
I should be careful what I wish for
It now looks like Steve Cooley, the Republican District Attorney from Los Angeles, will win the election for California state Attorney General. He moved ahead of Kamala Harris, the Democratic District Attorney from San Francisco, as more of the absentee ballots are counted. The absentee ballots often favor Republicans, since older, whiter and richer people are more likely to vote by absentee. (I always vote that way since it's easier - the ballot comes in the mail and I can fill it out at home and send it in and avoid the polling places. Any registered voter can be a "permanent absentee" voter. Why not have all elections that way and save money?) So now Prop 8 and its supporters have the California Attorney General defending it. But the next trial starts in less than a month, before he takes office. So will the courts let him defend it? Who knows? If the case is appealed to the US Supreme Court he can defend it there. Plus now our Attorney General will be reluctant to defend gay rights or any other progressive/liberal group or law.
Friday, November 5, 2010
long time, US elections
Hi again. It's been too long since I posted, but not much has happened.
The big news is the midterm elections here in the US. "Midterm" means half way between Presidential elections, when all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate are up for re-election, plus many state and local elections. The GOPs (which is an acronym for Grand Old Party, or the Republicans - why are they grand and old? The Democratic party is older and the Republicans are not grand) regained control of the House and lowered the Democratic margin in the Senate. Some good people won't come back to DC - Russ Feingold in the Senate and Patrick Murphy in the House come to mind first. The New Hampshire legislature will have Republican majorities that can undo the same sex marriage law, and they have a veto-proof margin, so the Democratic governor can't stop it. But the most upsetting elections to me were the ouster of three judges in Iowa who ruled that marriage discrimination was unconstitutional under state law. Why get rid of a judge for upholding the law? Bigotry has no limits, I guess.
One election that has not been decided since the votes are still being counted is the state Attorney General here in California. Kamala Harris, the Democrat from San Francisco, has a very small lead over Steve Cooley, the Republican from LA. The legal strategist in me (that is a joke) wonders how that outcome might affect Prop 8. The current governor and Attorney General, who is also the governor-elect, refused to defend Prop 8 in court, so its backers did. But whether they have legal standing to defend it is an issue. If Cooley wins, he will defend it, but will the courts let him since he wasn't in office when the case was argued in the district court? If the appeals court finds that the backers of Prop 8 don't have standing, and the only people who do, the governor and Attorney General, refuse to appeal, the courts may let the ruling that 8 is unconstitutional stand. Then the backers would likely ask the US Supreme Court to take the case. But it has been the conservatives on the Supreme Court who have made standing so narrow. I believe that Justice Scalia and a few others won't let a technicality like the law get in the way of their religiously based biases against gays and lesbians. But how would the Supreme Court rule? The court generally tries to duck controversial issues like this if it possibly can - look at the Newdow ruling about the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance case. This would all be interesting to ponder if people's lives weren't at stake. And lives really are on the line every time a court decides a case about gays and lesbians. Because when the government says that it is OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians, kids see that and take it as tacit approval of bullying or as another sign that everyone is against them. I remember how devastating the Bowers versus Hardwick decision finding that gays don't have a right to have sexual intercourse was in the 1980s and don't want to see something like that for marriage equality.
The big news is the midterm elections here in the US. "Midterm" means half way between Presidential elections, when all of the House and 1/3 of the Senate are up for re-election, plus many state and local elections. The GOPs (which is an acronym for Grand Old Party, or the Republicans - why are they grand and old? The Democratic party is older and the Republicans are not grand) regained control of the House and lowered the Democratic margin in the Senate. Some good people won't come back to DC - Russ Feingold in the Senate and Patrick Murphy in the House come to mind first. The New Hampshire legislature will have Republican majorities that can undo the same sex marriage law, and they have a veto-proof margin, so the Democratic governor can't stop it. But the most upsetting elections to me were the ouster of three judges in Iowa who ruled that marriage discrimination was unconstitutional under state law. Why get rid of a judge for upholding the law? Bigotry has no limits, I guess.
One election that has not been decided since the votes are still being counted is the state Attorney General here in California. Kamala Harris, the Democrat from San Francisco, has a very small lead over Steve Cooley, the Republican from LA. The legal strategist in me (that is a joke) wonders how that outcome might affect Prop 8. The current governor and Attorney General, who is also the governor-elect, refused to defend Prop 8 in court, so its backers did. But whether they have legal standing to defend it is an issue. If Cooley wins, he will defend it, but will the courts let him since he wasn't in office when the case was argued in the district court? If the appeals court finds that the backers of Prop 8 don't have standing, and the only people who do, the governor and Attorney General, refuse to appeal, the courts may let the ruling that 8 is unconstitutional stand. Then the backers would likely ask the US Supreme Court to take the case. But it has been the conservatives on the Supreme Court who have made standing so narrow. I believe that Justice Scalia and a few others won't let a technicality like the law get in the way of their religiously based biases against gays and lesbians. But how would the Supreme Court rule? The court generally tries to duck controversial issues like this if it possibly can - look at the Newdow ruling about the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance case. This would all be interesting to ponder if people's lives weren't at stake. And lives really are on the line every time a court decides a case about gays and lesbians. Because when the government says that it is OK to discriminate against gays and lesbians, kids see that and take it as tacit approval of bullying or as another sign that everyone is against them. I remember how devastating the Bowers versus Hardwick decision finding that gays don't have a right to have sexual intercourse was in the 1980s and don't want to see something like that for marriage equality.
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