| Ginny Buckingham in the Herald and Scot Lehigh in the Globe both weighed in today on what the legislature should do in tomorrow's ConCon. Sorry Ginny, but Scot's right, and you're wrong, on this one.
Here's Ginny:
Truly, Chad Gifford, Larry Fish, Cam Kerry, et al [all of whom signed yesterday's Globe ad urging the legislature to reject the amendment], have every right to lobby the Legislature, march on the State House or, more likely, persuade other opinion leaders over lunch at Locke Ober’s. Heck, they could pass the hat and buy a TV ad during the All-Star Game tonight if they so choose. But they don’t have the right to take away our vote.
And now that the Supreme Judicial Court has blessed the ballot question as legally legit, the state Legislature doesn’t have that right either....
Whether “we get to decide� what marriage means will be determined tomorrow. Whether democracy still has any meaning at all on Beacon Hill will get determined then, too.
Rubbish. Of course the state legislature has the "right" to decide whether this proposed constitutional amendment gets to the ballot or not. Remember the state Constitution? If not, here's a reminder:
Section 4. Legislative Action. - ... At such joint session a legislative amendment receiving the affirmative votes of a majority of all the members elected, or an initiative amendment receiving the affirmative votes of not less than one-fourth of all the members elected, shall be referred to the next general court.
Clear enough for ya, Ginny? Only those initiative amendments that can garner 50 votes in the legislature deserve a shot at the ballot. If the framers of Article 48 didn't want the legislature to have a say in whether initiative amendments backed by the requisite number of signatures make it to "the people," they wouldn't have written one into the Constitution.
Scot gets it:
Gay marriage opponents insist legislators have an obligation to move the measure along so the voters can eventually decide. "Let the people vote" has become one of their favorite mantras.
That argument is simply silly. The state constitution establishes a clear gate keeping function for the Legislature.
If opponents can deny the amendment the 50 votes it needs both in this legislative session and the next, they would deal it a completely legitimate defeat. There is no obligation to let the voters decide.
Exactly correct, both as a legal matter and as a small "d" democratic matter. Our Constitution does not guarantee a plebiscite on every proposed constitutional amendment that picks up enough signatures. Rather, it assigns a "gatekeeper" role to the state legislature. Setting the bar low - only 25% of the legislature needs to approve initiative amendments - ensures that only those proposals that cannot garner even a modest level of support from the people's elected representatives will be barred from the ballot. Even Buckingham's bosses at the Herald's editorial board get this one right: "If it can’t get that number on an up or down vote then surely it is not worthy of further consideration."
Buckingham's column is replete with precious irony. She starts it out by saying that "some 123,356 citizens signed a petition so we - all of us - would have the chance to vote on the meaning of marriage in Massachusetts." Now, why is the number of signatures important? It's important because Article 48 makes it important - under Article 48, you have to collect a certain number of signatures to even have your proposal considered. Unfortunately for Buckingham, it's the same Article 48 that gives the legislature a gatekeeper function for amendments that have received the required number of signatures. You can't have it both ways - if one requirement is important, so is the other.
Lehigh's bottom line is the same as mine:
the best and most appropriate course for dealing with this amendment is to defeat it in a way that respects the intent of the constitutional process -- a way that gay marriage supporters can later defend as a completely honorable, legitimate, and definitive victory for their cause.
The legislature should vote tomorrow. And they should vote "no." |
