The Legal Moose’s Glen

Wanted to jot down some quick “day after” thoughts on the in re Marriage Cases decision that was handed down yesterday in California.

Procedurally, the case is now remanded back to the Court of Appeals for action consistent with the Court’s opinion. Clearly, part of that action is the invalidation of the parts of the marriage law, both for in-state and for recognition of out-of-state marriages, which limit “marriage” to opposite-sex couples. Same-sex couples will be able to marry once the Court of Appeals takes action. What is less clear is the status of those who have entered into domestic partnerships under California law. The Court did not explicitly address the domestic partnership statutes in the final part of their decision. It’s now unclear how the Court of Appeals and/or the legislature will address the issue.

From my limited view of California law (culled pretty much entirely from the decision), part of the elligibility for a domestic partnership was inelligibility for marriage. If the courts were to read the new availability of marriage as invalidating current domestic partnerships without making the partners go through the usual 6 month process for dissolution of the partnership, that might not be a bad thing. What I don’t see them doing is automatically converting partnerships to marriages, at least not by the court alone. The legislature could make such a thing a possibility, and I would hope they would do so for partnerships where one of the partners has died (since other rights and responsibilities for partnerships were added retroactively even for partnerships where one member was deceased, according to the decision), but I would not impose the full structure of marriage on those who entered into a partnership without their express consent.

The other thorny issue is those partnerships where the main reason was for support of the elderly, and not for “marriage light.” Not even going to touch that one, but it would be good if they kept that part of the partnership law in place.

In any case, those folks who are in valid domestic partnerships under California law now find themselves in a legal limbo, not knowing where they’re going to come out. Will the courts declare them de facto married? Will their partnerships get dissolved without being married? Will they have to go through the six month process to dissolve the partnership in order to get married? The Court didn’t address this, which was a weakness of the decision, in my opinion.

The other interesting note in the decision was the Court’s explanation of how the Governor was correct to veto the two attempts by the legislature to pass full gay marriage statutes. In essence, because Prop 22 was passed by initiative and because it did not allow for the legislature to change the law without putting the change to a vote, as is required by the California constitution. The statutes would not have been upheld by the courts, and as such the Governor was simply exercising his constitutional duty to veto legislation which he (properly) did not feel was constitutional. See footnotes 16-17 and the surrounding text. Knowing that puts his veto in a much better light, especially viewed together with his opposition to the current attempt to amend the state constitution to limit marriage to opposite-sex couples.

I won’t get into the classification of “sexual orientation” as a suspect class under California law except to say, “Wow, that was unexpected, yet quite, quite cool.” Smarter folks than I would better address all of the ramifications of that.

The slip opinion (.pdf file there) of the California Supreme Court in in re Marriage Cases is a doozy - 172 pages.

But let me tell you, reading the summary in the first 11-12 pages is a joy.

I feel irrationally nervy about today’s announcement from the California Supreme Court in their consolidated same-sex marriage cases.

Promised myself yesterday that I’d allow myself to sleep in this morning so I’d be better rested for the meeting on the Hill, and I’d head home and do my long run after work. Did the sleeping in, did the meeting (which went fairly well, all things considered), got home and almost wussed out on the run. Quickly decided that I wasn’t feeling blah, I was just feeling lazy, and that wasn’t a good enough excuse not to run, so off I went. Shaved 4 minutes off the 6.6 mile loop I’m currently using for my long run, which felt pretty good.

After the meeting on the Hill and subsequent conversations with my various supervisors, I feel like I have a better grasp on what I’m doing to tighten up this memo. Tomorrow is all about editing and tightening, so it should be interesting. I think we’ve tracked it all down, we just have to do more than just describe the law now (synthesis!).

BC arrived safely in England and seems to be happy to being visiting his relatives there. That was happy news via SMS this morning.

Hopefully it’ll be warm enough in the morning to ride.

I’m attempting to sleep because I have to be up in about 5 hours to go to an early morning swim clinic halfway across the city. I say attempting because there’s about a dozen young persons outside my window playing, foot racing, and generally making far too much noise outside my window (which has to stay open because it’s too warm out to keep the place closed off).

So, being a curmudgeon, for the second or third time since I moved here I just called the police to have them come enforce the DC curfew law. If it’s like the last time, the police’ll be out after a bit, and the kids will be sent home with no arrests made. And I’m fine with that, as long as they urchins go inside and stop keeping me awake.

This week was supposed to be a relatively quiet one, or so I thought. Then a cousin called, is in town, and we’re having dinner tomorrow, which means my hair appointment (for the 3rd of 4th time in a row?) gets rescheduled, hopefully to Wednesday, when I have a date with BC (dinner after haircut, I suppose). Thursday turns out to be election night for my cult co-op, so I’ll be getting some knitting in then. Busy, busy, busy.

The legs are a bit sore from yesterday’s short run, which is expected. Treated myself by making a nice curry tonight, though it reminded me why I don’t keep cashews in the house in a regular basis (*nom, nom, nom!*). This curry’s best with a light topping of cilantro & chopped cashews, so I went all out after a brief stop at the grocery store for the fresh stuff.

One of my larger projects is going to be picking up steam here in short order, so work’s going to get very busy with lots of the more tedious aspects of being an attorney. I think we know where we’re going with it, though, so hopefully it won’t be too painful.

I’m deliberately not commenting on all of the political posts I see all over the ‘net these days (well, except to share satire), mainly because I happen to like my friends and would rather not unduly antagonize those relationships.

When you have a second person spending a considerable amount of time at your house, it’s amazing how much faster you run through personal grooming products.

Received a book from a friend today, a textbook on Queensland criminal law which I’d helped him read and edit. He thoughtfully included me in the dedications, a first for me. Strange to see my name there in print, but also kind of cool.

On the same line as the grooming products note, I got a new iron today in the mail. I hardly ever use my iron (I’m lazy), but BC uses one almost daily, so my old, leaky iron was not going to cut it. Especially after it leaked all over my desk. So, claiming my title as “Mr. Exciting” I ordered a new one. Very fancy, I’ll try it tomorrow morning before work. And shock my coworkers by not looking completely wrinkled. Maybe.

There are days when you have all of the answers, and days when you don’t. Today, thankfully, was the former and not the latter. Tomorrow is anyone’s guess.

I’ve been thinking a lot about work and being an attorney. Next year is ten years out from law school for me, and despite the occasional clusterfuck at work, I think I’ve gotten into a pretty good groove where I don’t feel like I’m just acting confident when dealing with clients, I actually am self-assured, because I’ve been doing this long enough to know what I’m talking about in my practice area most days. It’s a confidence that sort of snuck up on me when I wasn’t looking, and was a bit startling to realize was there.

Not to say that I think I’m all that and a bag of chips, but the advice giving business is a lot easier when you know what I do about the BGA now that I’ve been there for almost four years. I’ve still got a ton to learn, but it’s nice not feeling like I’m faking it all the time.

Of course, this will all go right out the window once Congress gets around to changing the budget rules again, but for the moment it’s a good feeling.

Today was flying in and out of meetings, reassuring program staffs that they weren’t in trouble, promising things which will be delivered in short order, and generally was most people’s best friend. It’s so much nicer when you can be helpful and not have to say no (because you don’t have to, here). The nay saying will come back soon enough (and is occasionally nice in and of itself when your client is being a ninny, but is generally more of a pain than anything else - I mean, who wants to deliver bad news to someone?).

[side note - I'm so used to old-school WYSIWYG web editing programs which insert a paragraph tag when you hit a return and a break tag when you hit shift return, that this new version of WordPress is a bit disconcerting in its word-processor-like behavior when it inserts only a break when you hit return once, and a paragraph when you hit it twice. How new school. oh, and I miss the "html lookup" button, which appears to be obsolete now that it's keeping tags visible in the editing screen.]

I put in a WordPress plug-in that will allow me to post more easily from the iPhone. I did confirm with it this morning that I have to be determined to post, though, since if I leave the browser to do a lot of other things it tends to lose the post. I’ll have to play with it more to see if it’s possible to save and come back to something.

The LiveJournal one is cross-posting stuff well, too, even if it doesn’t allow me to choose the user pic from WordPress any more.

And on that note, I’m exhausted and need to crash.

I am reminded today why one of the many terms for lawyer is “counselor.” Despite my attempts at humor at work (”Moose, I need help!” “Well, my graduate degree is in law, not psychology, but I’ll do my best…”), I do try to listen as best I can. It doesn’t always work, but sometimes I think it helps, and that’s a good thing.

I just saw a woman wearing black Crocs with her pants suit. It’s a shame they don’t give us honorary fashion police ticket books, or she’d have gotten one.

I need to teach my clients the concept of “admission against interest.” Just because someone has asked for information doesn’t mean you have to divulge everything, only what they asked for, narrowly tailored to fit the request. This is not an opportunity to throw on a hair shirt and get out the scourge, folks.

Saw Stardust this weekend. Marvelous film. Will enjoy getting it on DVD once it’s out - this was definitely an over-and-over-again type of film for me. And Michelle Pfeiffer was hot as the witch queen.

Rode out to BC’s place on Saturday. If that type of commute is going to become a regular thing, which it may, I’ll need to get another bike. I rode the tri bike, which meant carrying a bag on my back. Not terribly comfortable for 2 hours. I need a bike with a rack for panniers, and the mountain bike simply is not up to that kind of riding. Maybe in the spring I’ll look for a road bike. And figure out where to store a third bicycle.

Getting back into the swing of things, post head cold and pre-races. The swim is still the most nerve-inducing part, but I expect it to go more smoothly than previous races. I’m less anxious about it than I have been in the past, and I think it’ll be fine.

I’m glad I gave up the morning paper, I am making it through more in the way of other reading, but the magazine pile hasn’t really diminished. I have made it through 1.5 books, though, and the last Harry Potter is sitting out, beckoning.