Prop. 8 and the Rebooting California symposium

This Monday's oral argument before a panel of the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the appeal of the Proposition 8 case, Perry v. Schwarzenegger, produced an issue that was discussed in the "Rebooting California" symposium. This occurred principally in the fourth panel, which was concerned with the initiative process. The issue arose in the appellate argument over whether the proposition's proponents had standing to prosecute the appeal when California's governor and attorney general had decided not to do so.

The question, as it was discussed in front of the Ninth Circuit panel, was whether the two state constitutional officers had an affirmative duty to prosecute the appeal in defense of Proposition 8. As an initiative constitutional amendment, Proposition 8 could be characterized as an expression of the will of the people acting as the ultimate sovereign of the state: "all power of government ultimately resides in the people," as the California Supreme Court has repeatedly held, most recently in Strauss v. Horton,the state court challenge to Proposition 8.

One member of the federal panel described the officers' action (or inaction) as an effective veto on the people's will as expressed in Proposition 8.

In Panel Four on Sept. 24, two speakers, Steven Miller and Christopher Elmendorf, discussed the issue of the special status of initiative enactments in the light of the "ultimate power resides in the people" theory. Their talks are available on RebootCA.org.