Prop 8 Protest Information Thread

[Ghoulish Delight]

There's also this oft-cited excerpt from Westbrook v. Mihaly 2 Cal. 3d 756.

"constitutional rights may not be infringed simply because the majority of the people choose that they be"

Unfortunately, while I can find plenty of people making reference to the quote, I can find no details on the actual case and whether it might apply to this one.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

There's also this oft-cited excerpt from Westbrook v. Mihaly 2 Cal. 3d 756.

"constitutional rights may not be infringed simply because the majority of the people choose that they be"

Unfortunately, while I can find plenty of people making reference to the quote, I can find no details on the actual case and whether it might apply to this one.

You can read the case decision here (it is a ZIP file containing a TXT file). Search for "--*--" to get down to the part where the analysis ends and the decision starts.

The issue in the case seems to have been two bond measures passed in San Francisco in 1969. They passed with a simple majority but not the super-majority required by the California constitution (back in 1970, don't know about now). Supporters filed in attempt to have the courts require certification of the bonds as having passed on the grounds that California's 2/3rds majority requirement for bond measures was a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment. (On the grounds that in such a requirement a No vote has twice the weight of a Yes vote.)

I just skimmed it, but I believe the court ruled that there was not a sufficient governmental interest in the two-thirds requirement and struck it down (but I may be misunderstanding my brief skim since I know many places do still have such requirements).

The placement of the quote is in rejecting the idea that the 2/3 requirement is allowable simply because it was correctly incorporated into the state constitution. (Essentially they are saying "no, if this is unconstitutional otherwise, it is not made constitutional simply for having been legally added.")

However, that decision doesn't seem to be the actual source for the quote. And what it weird is that it apparently could be cited from a much more prominent source. According to the footnotes in Westbrook v. Mihaly they are quoting Lucas v. 44th General Assembly of Colorado (1964) when they rules that the state's new state legislature redistricting plan was unconstitutional and needed to be redone.

It is this opinion, written by Chief Justice Earl Warren that the quoted bit appears. Admittedly they apparently finally found a catchy way of saying it. In footnotes associated with this quote they reference themselves (the Supreme Court previously saying:

One's right to life, liberty, and property . . . and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections. - West Virginia State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette (1943)

and

No plebiscite can legalize an unjust discrimination. - Hall v. St. Helena Parish School Bd. (1962)

Anyway, that is all way more than I intended to seek out. It was an interesting 40 minute journey of reading. Surprisingly that Mihaly decision makes for an interesting read, at least as a skim.