The California Supreme Court issued the latest entry in the legal paper trail of the saga of Proposition 8 today. Prop 8, recall, is California’s initiative constitutional amendment that stripped same-sex couples of their previously fundamental right to marry under the California Constitution.
Answering a question that had been certified by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the court ruled “that when the public officials who ordinarily defend a challenged state law or appeal a judgment invalidating the law decline to do so, under … the California Constitution and the relevant provisions of the Elections Code, the official proponents of a voter-approved initiative measure are authorized to assert the state’s interest in the initiative’s validity, enabling the proponents to defend the constitutionality of the initiative and to appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative.”
With this ruling, the dispute over Prop 8′s constitutionality returns to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where that federal court now seems more likely to rule that Prop 8′s official sponsors (“the Proponents”) have the legal authority or standing to appeal Judge Walker’s August 2010 decision holding Prop 8 unconstitutional.
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