From Legal Insurrection:
The Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has granted a stay pending an expedited appeal of the District Court Order which held that California Prop. 8 violated the U.S. Constitution. The Court specifically ordered the supporters of Prop. 8 to brief if they had standing to appeal…
A little surprised that the 9th would do this – after all, this is reasonable and just and entirely in accordance with the law…things not often seen out of the 9th. Could be, of course, that they just realized if the upheld the order then the Supreme Court would just issue a stay.
Bottom line – this delays the issue until after the election, and then shortly after that California may have a governor and/or attorney general who will do their darned job and defend the will of the people of California.
UPDATE: The brief which “smacked down” Walker is available here. A quote:
…to read the district court’s confident, though often startling, factual pronouncements, one would think that reasonable minds simply cannot differ on the key legislative facts implicated by this case. Again, however, the district court simply ignored virtually everything—judicial authority, the works of eminent scholars past and present in all relevant academic fields, extensive documentary and historical evidence, and even simple common sense—opposed to its conclusions. Indeed, even though this case implicates quintessential legislative facts— i.e., “general facts which help the tribunal decide questions of law and policy and discretion,” Langevin v. Chenango Court, Inc., 447 F.2d 296, 300 (2d Cir. 1971) (Friendly, J.)—the district court focused almost exclusively on the oral testimony presented at trial. See Daggett v. Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices, 172 F.3d 104, 112 (1st Cir. 1999) (Boudin, J.) (legislative facts “usually are not proved through trial evidence but rather by material set forth in the briefs”); Indiana H. B. R.R. Co. v. American Cyanamid Co., 916 F.2d 1174, 1182 (7th Cir. 1990) (Posner, J.) (legislative facts “more often are facts reported in books and other documents not prepared specially for litigation”). The district court’s treatment of the trial testimony, moreover, was likewise egregiously selective and one-sided. The district court eagerly and uncritically embraced the highly tendentious opinions offered by Plaintiffs’ experts and simply ignored important concessions by those witnesses that undermined Plaintiffs’ claims. And it just as consistently refused to credit (or even qualify) the two experts offered by Proponents…
As I’ve said – he just ruled the way he preferred things to come out. That the MSM is retailing Plaintiff’s lie that the Proponents made a poor case doesn’t change the fact that it was the Plaintiff’s who were making absurd arguments. They made them, however, in front of a “judge” determined to find for them.
This judicial usurpation simply cannot be allowed to stand – and even a proponent of gay marriage who has an ounce of Americanism in his bones will demand that this ruling be overturned. It is un-American, unjust and hateful – if gay marriage is to be, it simply must not come about via a black robed tyrant.
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