An Alabama Supreme Court judge has now raised the possibility if that state is forced to accept same sex marriage, then under the Alabama Constitution, all marriages in the state are null and void.
Here is the ruling (PDF warning).
I doubt the people who elected him are predominantly the ones receiving the federal benefits, at least directly (lots of people benefit indirectly, but often fail to appreciate it). The ideological barriers here run deep, regardless of the balance sheets–otherwise every state would have signed on for Medicaid expansion.
On most things I usually err on the side of ignorance vs malice, but what level of legal knowledge does someone have to have to know about those laws but not know that they have been found unconstitutional? On some level, I feel these guys must know what they’re doing. And even though the defendant is sure to be exonerated in these cases, I can’t imagine the intervening time is anything other than terrifying.
It’s important to note that Moore is basically huffing and puffing. As CJ of the Alabama Supreme Court he is the chief administrator of the probate judges (who serve the function of clerks of the court in other jurisdictions), but his directive is not an administrative one. It would take the whole ALSC to order probate judges not to comply with the federal court order.
I dunno – I’m sure that many of the people who voted for him are against Obamacare because they want the gummint to keep its hands off their Medicare.
Could a federal judge issue a bench warrant for Moore’s arrest for contempt of court?
Even laws that have been ruled unconstitutional but stay on the books are dangerous. Some future court could rule the decision on inter-racial damage was in error (it could happen, especially if someone like Huckabee were elected and got to appoint a few justices). Then states that still had their bans on the books would be able to enforce them immediately. Other states would have to pass new laws and most likely would not.
Not immediately. As a nonparty Moore is not bound by the judge’s order. The judge would have to enjoin Moore from doing what he’s doing first, then find him in contempt if he flouts the injunction. It’s highly unlikely that the judge would do that anyway (setting aside sovereign immunity issues.)
Wouldn’t they be into writs of mandamus first? Sent directly to the probate judges, bypassing Moore and the AL AG, that is.
I think you’re confusing the dissent with the majority opinion:
Emphasis added.
Please feel free to use more imagination to find federal funds related to weddings. With all due respect, I’m not satisfied with the statement that you’re sure you can find them.
There’s a trope for this.
No. I said “minority” instead of “dissenting” by mistake.
Sorry, that was my mistake. But the minority or dissenting position is of no use in determining what the actual jurisprudence is. Sure, I understand that you agree with the dissent, but we’re dealing here with the facts of what can happen, and that is determined by the majority opinion, not by the dissent.
Yeah but that’s why I brought it up in the first place. Despite me disagreeing, the court found that it was Constitutional to withhold fairly tangentially related funding to force states to comply. I agree that finding a suitable fig leaf would be harder in this case. I was just tossing it out there - I don’t think this is some slam dunk.
Which they have now done: Alabama Supreme Court first in nation to defy federal court gay marriage order - al.com
This will now surely end up before SCOTUS (which is expected to rule on SSM this term anyway), and if the ASC flouts some eventual ruling by their Federal counterparts, I would not be surprised to see many if not most Alabama probate judges and clerks following Washington’s lead. The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and they have all sworn oaths to preserve, protect and defend it.
Ambrosia Spinola helpfully posted [a link](The claimant testified that he “aggravated” the injury in 2009, though he could not identify a discrete event precipitating this aggravation. He testified that he simply woke up one morning in pain.) to the (giant) ALSC order in the omnibus SCOTUS SSM thread. It is interesting (as noted in your link) that the ALSC rejected the federal district court’s ruling in its entirety, but did not go so far as to order the one judge who was actually bound by it to ignore it.
Having said that, if 7 ALSC judges think they can override the federal courts (Moore did not take part in the decision, so he’s one more), I have little doubt that at least a substantial minority of AL probate judges will think they’re right.
What do you expect to happen?
Counties refuse to issue marriage licenses? Then the couples take them to court, eventually wind up in the federal court and get injunction and/or damages. Counties still refuse to issue licenses, end up spending most of their revenue paying compensation to aggrieved couples; or federal judge issues order granting license, bypassing county; or some counties ignore the orders from on high and issue license anyway. Don’t pay court-ordered compensation? Federally chartered banks respond to payment orders by seizing county accounts to pay aggrieved parties. And so on. In any contest, the feds have the bigger swinging whatever…
State refuses to recognize marriages? No benefits, no survivor pension, support, etc. as a normal couple would receive? Same path - eventually ends up in federal court, offending county or state ordered to pay up extra for blatant discrimination, their bank accounts can be seized, etc.
In this situation, the state is no different than you or me objecting to paying income tax on moral grounds or similar. You can’t fight city hall, especially when it’s the feds.
I expect nothing to happen in most counties. I feel fairly confident in saying the vast majority of Alabama same-sex couples live in (sub)urban areas. In those areas, I expect that federal writs will be filed and the probate courts will swiftly bow to the power of the federal judiciary while making press statements about how the will of the people of Alabama is being trampled.
Unfortunately, the couples who are (hugely) inconvenienced by this won’t get damages because the federal district court’s original opinion is not necessarily binding on other probate judges. It wasn’t stayed by the federal appellate courts but it hasn’t been upheld yet either. Other state agencies have accepted the inevitable and gone along with similarly limited rulings anyway but… it’s Alabama.
ETA: Except for Shaw (one of the dissenters) and Wise, everyone on that court is old enough to remember George Wallace’s schoolhouse door speech.
If they actually *use *their “whatever”. Remember, for several months before the Civil War, a bunch of states were in open secession, but the feds didn’t try to bring them back in line by force until the South foolishly bombarded Ft. Sumter. In more recent times, the only real use of Northern force I can think of was the federal troops that enforced desegregation. But even there, who knows what would have happened had the schools refused to operate with black kids in them.
And then much more recently, we had Rancher Bundy scare off a federal agency with a bunch of gun-toting friends. They haven’t gone back as far as I’ve heard.
I’m sure if the federal government is determined enough, they will get their way. But if there is enough resistance by the state, I wonder how the logistics of it all would work, and how assiduous the feds would be in doing what needs to be done. It seems to me that most of the time, the Supreme Court issues a ruling, and the states just grumble a bit and go along, making it relatively easy. So this, in modern times, is potentially new terrain.
See, this is why we still have nukes.
In reality, all it would take is a freeze on Federal funding to anything in Alabama to get the state to fold like a cheap fan.
But can they do that without Congress going along? The House is not going to go for that.