Worried About Judge Walker
U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker, a Republican appointee who is presiding over the trial in the federal legal challenge to Prop 8, has been asking lawyers and witnesses versions of the same question, over and over again. Why is the state involved in sanctioning marriages anyway?
These queries, which seem to spring from a libertarian perspective, might seem harmless, and suggest the judge is sympathetic to the cause of marriage equality. But the judge’s questions should make supporters of same-sex marriage nervous.
It’s because the judge is trumpeting one of the most frivolous – and thus dangerous – ideas in the debate over same-sex marriage. Let’s just take the government out of the marriage business.
This is a bad idea for two reasons. First, marriage is both a private and a public institution, with a long history. It’s a tradition at the center of family life, and thus a lot of law. Upending that would create change and turmoil that goes far beyond same-sex marriage. As such, to decouple the government from marriage is a radical notion. Legalizing same-sex marriage, in contrast, isn’t particularly radical at all. It extends marriage, with all history and traditions, to a small percentage of the population.
Joe Paine for Senate
"And I compromised–yes! So that all these years I could
stay in that Senate–and serve the people in a thousand honest ways! You’ve got
to face facts, Jeff. I’ve served our State well, haven’t I? We have the lowest unemployment and the
highest Federal grants. But, well, I’ve had to compromise, had to play
ball. You can’t count on people voting, half the time they don’t vote, anyway.
That’s how states and empires have been built since time began."-Sen. Joseph Paine, the corrupt but successful logroller
played by Claude Rains, explaining the facts of Senate life to the idealistic
new Sen. Jefferson C. Smith (Jimmy Stewart) in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
California has one of the highest unemployment rates and
among the lowest rates of federal grants.
So it’s time, way past time for Senators Feinstein and Boxer
to play ball.
Hardball.
George Washington Was Sterile, And Other Notes From Prop 8 Trial
I had been planning to spend part of the week in a federal courthouse in Pasadena, where a special broadcast had been arranged so Southern Californians could watch the trial in the legal challenge to Prop 8 without having to go to the courtroom in San Francisco.
But the U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5-4 ruling that seemed based on a sort of “Wizard of Oz” logic (even the most important trials shouldn’t be hidden behind the curtain), barred the federal district judge’s plan to broadcast the trial to Pasadena, other federal courts, and over the Internet. The court’s decision, which makes me wonder if the five conservative justices have some sort of deal with Southwest Airlines, forced me to fly to San Francisco to see what I was missing.
Here are a few notes from the civil trial, in which two couples are challenging Prop 8’s ban on same-sex marriage as a violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. constitution:
My Interview With Whiskey and Bacon
Last week, I violated one important rule of good reporting: never assume. I had assumed that California’s breakout media stars of January, Gov. Schwarzenegger’s miniature pony Whiskey and potbellied pig Bacon, would be unavailable to offer their own comments on his state of the state speech.
I thought wrong. I got a call over the weekend from a previously unheard-of public relations firm, Orwell-George Communications, saying that the animals would like to talk.
I met the pig and the pony — along with their CHP detail, publicist and agent — in the private room behind a fashionable café in Brentwood. Here is an edited transcript.
Q: Were you surprised to have so much of the State of the State address devoted to you?
WHISKEY: Floored, and I don’t use that word lightly, since I’m only three feet tall. First off, it struck me as a big risk for a politician to talk about pigs – no offense, Bacon. And that goes double when the politician in question is named Arnold. People put that name and pig together, and they’re thinking less about your political agenda and more about that pig on “Green Acres.”
Is Arnold Asking the Feds for Enough Money?
Over the next few months, I have to do something I’m dreading, something I’ve never done before in my life: raise money (for a global conference on direct democracy in San Francisco this coming summer).
My instinct, as a thrifty person (my wife would say cheapskate), is to ask for very small amounts of money for very specific costs. But when I talked to friends who raise money for a living, their advice is just the opposite: I should ask for more than I think I can get. They argue that people won’t take you seriously unless you ask for a ton of money.
Which brings me to Gov. Schwarzenegger. He hasn’t unveiled his budget yet, but recent reports suggest his administration is seeking $8 billion to forestall cuts in important human services programs and perhaps to cover additional costs the state may incur as a result of federal health insurance legislation.
Given the state’s budget troubles and the need for such programs, Schwarzenegger’s request is appropriate. But the question is: is it enough?
The answer here is: No.
The Pig and the Pony Speech
Gov. Schwarzenegger’s state of the state speech was many things – funny, frank and a thorough summing up of California’s major challenges, few of which will be addressed in his last year in office.
But this valedictory may be best remembered for a terrific metaphor at its heart: the Pig and the Pony.
Schwarzenegger, in describing the “menagerie” of people and pets at his home (so many that I wondered if animal control should be spending more time in Brentwood), talked about how his family’s miniature pony and potbellied pig (whose names, I’m told, are Whiskey and Bacon) work together to break into and eat the dog’s food.
Campaigns, Websites and Ideas
In
a 21st century campaign, it is no longer enough to offer ideas. Campaigns
now routinely urge voters to submit their own.
Each of the three major, declared
candidates for governor – Whitman, Poizner, Campbell – asks voters, through
their web sites, to suggest ideas for making California a better place. I
wondered: how many of these ideas made their way into the platforms of the
candidates?
I asked each of the three campaigns
to answer that question. Here’s what I learned: not many. Only Tom Campbell’s campaign
could point to specific policy ideas that came directly from the ‘net.
Here are each campaign’s response
to my question:
My 8 Worst Predictions of 2009
A year as rough as 2009 should end with some tough self-appraisal. So here’s my look at my 8 worst predictions here at Fox & Hounds Daily over the year that passed. In reverse order:
8. I said Lamar Odom might leave the Lakers because of California taxes. I was wrong. What I didn’t account for was the allure of reality TV, and Khloe Kardashian.
7. Writing about the state’s stem cell agency and its board, I suggested that a public agency selling bonds in the private marketplace wasn’t such a bad idea. Given the persistence of the poor economy and the state’s budget problems, I’m no longer so sure about that.
6. Arnold’s future. In this item, actually written in late 2008, asking where Gov. Schwarzenegger might go next, I raised the possibility he could leave before the end of his term to work in the Obama administration. Dead wrong.
California’s Person of the Year
Time magazine likes to pick a person of the year, usually a news figure who transformed our world, usually for the better (though not always).
What if we were to pick such a person in California?
It’s been such a rotten year, and California’s civic climate seems so stuck, that it’s hard to choose anyone. As I thought about whom to nominate, I considered the entrepreneur (next frontier: space) Richard Branson. I pondered whether to nominate Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, who is making history with climate change regulation. The cynical political observer in me thought about offering up Abel Maldonado, who showed just how much a state legislator can accomplish for himself with one vote.
My runner-up is California Supreme Court Justice Ronald George, who effectively reversed his 2008 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage and reaffirmed the supremacy of voters by upholding Prop 8 (even when the voters are wrong, as in the case of Prop 8). George also bravely and appropriately spoke out about the need for constitutional reform in California.
Burton and the Gift Horse
The best of John Burton, the former legislator and now California Democratic Party chairman, is his commitment to fighting for the poorest and the neediest.
The worst of John Burton is the sort of tribal partisan nonsense he recently offered up to the San Francisco Chronicle in explaining why he’s against confirming Lt. Gov-designate Abel Maldonado. Burton doesn’t want Maldonado confirmed no matter what. “Why give his seat to another party?” he recently told the San Francisco Chronicle. He added a few other partisan swipes — “There’s a reason why some people are Democrats, and some are Republicans. And Democrats don’t vote for Republicans” – and a blast at the notion of bipartisan compromise — “The only thing in the middle of the road is a yellow stripe and a dead skunk.”
Well, a yellow stripe, a dead skunk and the independent California voters who decide statewide elections.
Burton’s thinking runs contrary to the interests of his own party.