5 January 2011 – U.S. Ninth Circuit
Joseph Hepworth
On 4 January 2011, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit asked the Supreme Court of California whether supporters of Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, have standing to defend the measure when state officials who are named defendants [see Perry et at. v. Schwarzenegger et al.] have refused to do so. The Ninth Circuit asked the California Supreme Court to answer the following question:
Whether under Article II, Section 8 of the California Constitution, or otherwise under California law, the official proponents of an initiative measure possess either a particularized interest in the initiative’s validity or the authority to assert the State’s interest in the initiative’s validity, which would enable them to defend the constitutionality of the initiative upon its adoption or appeal a judgment invalidating the initiative, when the public officials charged with that duty refuse to do so.