The people have spoken – and the California Legislature has now said that they don’t give a rat’s ass what the people have to say.

Both houses of the state Legislature passed resolutions Monday endorsing the legal effort to overturn California's same-sex marriage ban, just days before the issue goes to the state Supreme Court.

The resolutions passed along party lines, 18-14 in the Senate and 45-27 in the Assembly, with several members absent in both chambers.

The evidence that certain officeholders in the state are clearly not in sync with the voters – or with the basic principle of popular sovereignty that underlies the entire American system of government.

"We're talking about a radical revision to our Constitution," said Sen. Mark Leno, the San Francisco Democrat who sponsored the Senate resolution. "Do we have a constitutional democracy in California or do we have mob rule, where a majority of Californians can change the Constitution at any time?"

Excuse me, Senator Leno, but I’d like to remind you that the at the very heart of the notion of constitutional democracy is the belief that the power of government comes from the people, and that their grant of power to the government comes in the form of a constitution. The people have a right – indeed, they have an obligation – to alter or abolish a particular constitutional framework so as to establish a government that is responsive to their will so as to secure their essential liberties. To argue that permitting Californians to change their constitution at any time is antithetical to constitutional democracy is itself antithetical to constitutional democracy, as it places that document and the government it establishes above the people – essentially arguing that the people are the creature of the document and the institutions it establishes rather than the other way around.

Let me say this – reasonable people may disagree about the relative merits of gay marriage and Proposition 8. Reasonable people may even disagree about the question of revision vs. amendment under the California Constitution. However, no person can agree with Senator Leno’s words unless they fundamentally reject the words of Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, . . . — That. . . Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it. . . .

I’ve excerpted this quote in this form to provide the reminder that among the truths declared to be self-evident by the founding generation of the Republic was that the people are the only valid source of government power, and that it is the height of constitutionalism for the people to change a constitution, not a rejection of that principle. To argue otherwise is anti-constitutional – and, dare I say it, approaches being un-American.

Posted by: Greg at 09:37 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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