Governor Must Side With The Will of the People

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has a big decision ahead. The California Senate and Assembly have passed and presented him with AB849. This bill makes California marital law gender-neutral, thereby legalizing same-sex marriages in this state. Now it's up to the governor to sign or veto this bill.

Opponents of AB849 argue that the California people have already spoken on the gay marriage issue, by passing Proposition 22 five years ago. That proposition defined marriage in California law as between a man and a woman. But the law does not end with Proposition 22.

First, the people of California have a right to change their minds.

Second, some people may have voted for Proposition 22 inadvertently. The rhetoric of "equality" and "protecting marriage" that was deployed by the proposition's proponents made voters not want to choose the alternative.

In other words, some people who voted in favor of Proposition 22 in 2000 did not realize that their vote would ban gay marriage, and might have voted otherwise had they known.

Third, many Californians simply abstained from voting for or against Proposition 22. Perhaps they didn't think their vote would count, or they didn't care either way.

Still others disdain the California referendum process. As those arguments go, Californians elect and pay people to go to Sacramento to make laws so that the rest of us don't have to-so that we can focus on our jobs, our hobbies, and our families.

Some gay marriage opponents have insisted that Gov. Schwarzenegger veto AB849 and wait for a decision from the California courts on gay marriage. Such a case currently sits with the California Court of Appeals, one judicial step away the California Supreme Court. The governor said he would uphold any Supreme Court decision on gay marriage.

Republican strategists and the governor worry that the California Supreme Court might actually hold that a ban on gay marriage violates California's Constitution. The irony is this: the same strategists who are now telling Californians to "trust the courts" will be the ones who later on will claim that California judges are "activist" or "legislating from the bench," if the courts decide that a ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional.

The people of California express their will through their elected legislative representatives, not through judges. If the people don't like what their representatives do or what laws their representatives pass, the people vote them out of office. So, lawmakers generally won't pass controversial bills.

That is, unless they think that doing so will allow them to keep their jobs after the next election.

California Senators and Assembly members passed the controversial bill, acting as representatives of the voters in their constituencies. Schwarzenneger, like many elected officials before him, has promised to represent the will of the people of California.

The people have now spoken. It is time for Governor Schwarzennegger to keep his promises. Or else the people will vote him out of office and replace him with someone who will.

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