The Vote Is In!

Despite the antics of the opposition, it’s good to be reminded of who won this election and why.  The word is out from the 8 campaign, the votes are in and certified.  Californians raised their voices decisively on behalf of marriage and family.  —Beetle Blogger

It’s official!

The official Statement of the Vote has been released by the Secretary of State. Proposition 8 passed by a margin of 52.3% to 47.7%. We won by a margin of 600,000 votes: 7,001,084 to 6,401,483.  To provide some context for this vote:

• Prop. 8 received 2,150,000 MORE votes than did Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was reelected in 2006
• Prop. 8 received nearly 2 million MORE votes than Dianne Feinstein did when she was reelected to the US Senate in 2006
• Prop. 8 received 250,000 MORE votes than did John Kerry when he carried California in 2004
• Prop. 8 received 45,000 MORE votes than did Barbara Boxer in her landslide reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2004
• Prop. 8 passed with approximately the same percentage of the vote that Barack Obama received nationally

You can review the county-by-county results of Proposition 8 by going to the California Secretary of State’s Web page. Click here.

Prop 8 Legal Defense to Be Filed this Week

Attorneys for the ProtectMarriage.com campaign will submit the next round of legal briefs to the California Supreme Court this week in our efforts to defend Proposition 8 against three legal challenges.  Legal briefing will continue through the holidays until we file our final papers in late January 2009.  Then, the seven-member Supreme Court will decide when to hold a hearing for oral arguments, possibly as soon as March 2009.

This week’s written arguments, filed on behalf of our campaign and the official proponents of Proposition 8, will show the Court that Prop. 8 is a properly enacted initiative constitutional amendment, and not an improper “revision” to the state constitution, which can be done only with a two-thirds vote of the Legislature.

The San Francisco Chronicle published a comprehensive article last month covering some of the legal issues surrounding the challenge to Proposition 8. Here are excerpts:

“Historically, the odds are against the challengers of Prop. 8′s constitutionality. The court has allowed some ground-breaking constitutional changes to become law by initiative – the Proposition 13 tax limitations, restoration of the death penalty, legislative term limits and a pro-prosecution overhaul of evidence rules – and declared only two measures to be constitutional revisions.

“A revision, the justices said in the Prop. 13 case, must be something fundamental, a ‘drastic and far-reaching change in the nature and operation of our governmental structure.’

“The court has never said that the repeal of a single right, like the right to marry, amounts to a constitutional revision. Opponents of Prop. 8 argue that the court should set a standard that protects a historically persecuted minority group from losing rights by majority vote.

“Although legal commentators are divided, most appear to consider the argument a long shot.

“’It’s very hard to argue that this narrowly written constitutional amendment changes the fundamentals of our state government,’ said Ethan Leib, a constitutional law professor at UC Hastings in San Francisco and a supporter of same-sex marriage. “The reason that California has a ‘flexible and inviting (constitutional) amendment procedure,’ he said, ‘is that the people, rather than the judges, get to say what the Constitution means.’

“Another Hastings professor, Calvin Massey, invoked the court’s 1978 ruling upholding the death penalty as a reason that the Prop. 8 challenge should fail. “’I can’t think of any more fundamental right than to not have my government put me to death,’ he said. ‘That was found to be an amendment, not a revision.’”

You can read the full article here.

To help support the Proposition 8 legal defense effort, see the coalition website at www.protectmarriage.com