« I lied | Main | certifying non-control »

I was wrong

February 19, 2004 2:10 PM - comments (3)

I said my analysis of the Mayor's decision turned upon California state law. Turns out California state law turned my analysis into mush. Read my comments towards the end here.

Posted on February 19, 2004 2:10 PM | | technorati

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://lessig.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1186

Comments (3)

February 19, 2004 2:56 PM Craig Hughes:

What power does the legislature have to bind the Executive to the delaying power of the Judiciary? Arguing in the dark here about the CA constitution's provisions, but I would have expected that the Legislature is limited in the constraints it's allowed to put on the Executive. Now presumably, the Governor at the time signed the law binding the state's mayors, but the implication that this would definitely be constitutionally valid doesn't seem obvious to me. Would be interesting to know if some Mayor in CA history had ever tried to challenge this...

February 28, 2004 2:19 PM Mithras:

Prof. Lessig-
Do you have a cite? The comments after yours quote a passage of the CA Constitution which applies to "administrative agencies" only. Is that the law you are referring to, and if so, is San Francisco an administrative agency for these purposes?

March 11, 2004 1:07 PM On Lawn:

A great summary of how the Article III, section 3.5 applies to this case is found in Bill Lockyer's legal brief. The Attorney General also references sections of article XI that more directly apply to Newsome as a city official.

Basically (and I appologize if I get it wrong) marriage is something not delegated to the cities. Anyone issuing marriage liscences or processing applications is acting as an agent of the state. While Mayor Newsome may or may not be accountable pending the courts interpretation of article XI, it seems that those processing the applications and issuing the licenses are. If I understand it right and Mayor Newsome is not accountable it is only becuase he has no authority to order people to issue those licenses in the first place.

In New York State when this happened, the Mayor was left out to dry when he performed the cerimonies becuase those that had the authority in the matter, did not issue the licenses.

Post a comment

By entering the words in the box, you are also helping to digitize texts that were written before the computer age. The words that you see were taken directly from old texts that are being scanned and stored by the Internet Archive. This CAPTCHA helps proofread the books. If the sample is too hard to read, click the recycle button to get another two. A space between each word is required. And thanks for the comment and help.