Lanae Erickson Hatalsky and Sarah Trumble in Third Way’s 3rd annual report on The State of Relationship Recognition.
Read the full report, and be sure to follow @LanaeErickson and @SarahETrumble for the latest on social policy.
… and the one way it could lose
By Molly Ball, The Atlantic
Soon, the Supreme Court will hand down hotly anticipated verdicts on two cases related to gay marriage: a challenge to the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal marriage benefits to same-sex couples legally married in their states, and a challenge to California’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage in that state based on a November 2008 ballot initiative. The decisions are likely to come either Thursday or next Monday, though the court could delay them further.
Based on lower courts’ rulings and the justices’ questions during oral arguments in March, gay-marriage advocates are cautiously optimistic, particularly where DOMA is concerned. The Prop 8 case was argued by the bipartisan team of Theodore Olson and David Boies, the Republican and Democrat superlawyers who opposed one another in Bush v. Gore. On Tuesday, at an event sponsored by the center-left think tank Third Way, Boies discussed the many outcomes for that case.
1. Gay Marriage for All! A lower court struck down Prop 8 on broad U.S. constitutional grounds, ruling that the gay-marriage ban violated equal protection and possibly due process. If the Supreme Court affirms this argument, it would make gay marriage legal nationwide, Boies said, “because, obviously, the Constitution applies to all 50 states.”
2. Gay Marriage for California (Again)! A different lower court found Prop 8 unconstitutional on narrower grounds. Because the California Supreme Court made gay marriage legal in the state before Prop 8 made it illegal, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said, in Boies’ words, “once you grant rights to people, you can’t take those rights away without due process.” A decision on these grounds would restore gay marriage in California but leave other states unaffected.
3. Gay Marriage (and Civil Unions) for California! Another argument the court might buy is this: Since California already has civil unions for same-sex couples, there is no justification other than discrimination for barring them from describing those unions as “marriages,” which they are in all but name. If the Supreme Court agrees with this argument, it would again make gay marriage legal only in California.
4. Get Outta Here! Prop 8 opponents made the technical argument that the proponents did not have legal standing to bring their case. California’s governor and attorney general did not appeal the lower courts’ rulings striking down Prop 8; it was activists who backed the law. “Do they have standing to come in and defend it? Under Supreme Court precedent, they probably do not,” Boies said. “The Court has never granted standing to private citizens who do not have a fiduciary relationship to the state.” If the Court rules this way, the lower court ruling overturning Prop 8 would stand, and gay marriage would be legal in California.
5. Never Mind! The Supreme Court could simply reverse its own decision to take up the case to begin with. This is rare, but it does occasionally happen. During oral arguments, Boies was surprised how many of the justices’ queries seemed to question whether the timing was right to decide this issue. Such a move would again mean the appeals-court verdict is reinstated as the final word. Gay marriage would be legal in California.
6. No Gay Marriage for You! ”There is one way we could lose,” Boies said — if the Court rules that the Prop 8 proponents do have standing and rejects all the constitutional arguments for gay marriage. Such a ruling would set a precedent that would make it more difficult to challenge other states’ gay-marriage bans in court. “I certainly hope the court doesn’t do that. I think there’s no constitutional basis for it,” he said. “But it is a possibility.”
Jonathan Capehart has the scoop on our Third Annual State of Relationship Recognition report. Check it out! http://wapo.st/11TAVbJ
Third Way’s Josh Freed, quoted by Bloomberg Businessweek on President Obama’s recent moves on the Keystone XL oil pipeline.
Read the full story here, and check out the Third Way Clean Energy Initiatives report on American Shale Gas: Keeping it Affordable, Stable, and Accessible.
Deeping authoritarianism. A crackdown on NGOs. An anti-Semitic president. Yes, we have serious concerns about Egypt, but America should not gut its foreign aid to Cairo.
Why?
In our new memo, we make the case that denying aid to Egypt will ultimately hinder U.S. national security interests in the region—as cutting funding would prove to be counterproductive for the region, our allies, and our interests.
READ: Making the Case: Think Twice Before Punishing Egypt
“Providing guns and money would cause men to flock to its black banners, but al-Qaida has provided neither. Al-Qaida can try all it likes to adopt the trappings of a corporation. But without resources to provide to its affiliates, Zawahiri is shouting from the sidelines, a CEO in name only, of an organization that has been reduced to a shadow of its former self.”
In a new op-ed, Third Way’s Aki Peritz argues that without the resources to fund and arm terrorists, Ayman al-Zawahiri will have trouble maintaining influence and control of al Qaeda in Iraq.
Follow @AkiPeritz and @ThirdWayNatSec for more on national security and foreign policy.
Third Way’s Jim Kessler, Senior Vice President for Policy, quoted on the need for national commission to address modest fixes to Social Security.
Read the piece here and check our new brief on why It’s Time for a National Commission on Social Security.
“The most successful counterterrorism operations involve timely intelligence collection and analysis, and cooperation with local officials, not open-ended military operations involving large deployments of U.S. troops.”
In a new op-ed, Third Way’s Mieke Eoyang and the Cato Institute’s Christopher Preble argue for the repeal of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force as a “clean break” and a shift in the way the United States combats terrorism around the world.
Be sure to also check out previous work from Third Way’s National Security team, including Why We Should Try Terrorists in Federal Courts and What are the Real Lessons of Benghazi?
Bill Schneider, Distinguished Senior Fellow and Resident Scholar at Third Way, discusses whether or not Governor Chris Christie can overcome partisan divide in his newest Reuters Op-Ed.
Follow Bill @BillSchneiderDC for more on public policy and polling.
“Most Americans, particularly moderates, think immigrants are good people, but also worry that they are a drain on government resources. Moderate Democrats need to emphasize that the Senate bill is fair to taxpayers,” said Lanae Erickson Hatalsky, director of social policy and politics for the center-left organization Third Way. “That includes reminding folks that immigrants earning legalization must pay their own way and won’t be eligible for health care subsidies, Medicare, or Medicaid during that transition.”
For these Democrats, the strategy to win re-election and to legislate depends on considering the nuances of their states first and their party affiliation second.
“The politics of immigration can often be more regionally based than party-driven,” Erickson Hatalsky said. “Southwestern Republicans — like [John] McCain and [Jeff] Flake — have been much more amenable than some Deep South or rural Democrats.”
Atima Omara-Alwala, Vice President of Young Democrats of America, writing in the Washington Blade.
To check out our guidance on how to talk about marriage to the middle visit: thirdway.org/commitment
If so many of us are barely saving enough for our retirement years, can we really afford to rely on a smaller Social Security benefit?
That’s the situation Americans are facing in 2033, when Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be exhausted, and retirees will be paid just about 75 percent of their benefit.
To reignite the debate over how to close Social Security’s funding gap, a panel of experts gathered at a Capitol Hill forum on Tuesday and urged lawmakers to “shake off their complacency” and take action now, not years from now.
“It’s Time for a National Commission on Social Security” by David Brown, Gabe Horwitz, Jim Kessler, and David Kendall
Third Way’s Matt Bennett, Senior Vice President for Public Affairs, sat in as guest host on PoliOptics this week, and took a look behind the scenes of two of the most compelling aspects of American politics.
First, Stuart Connelly provided an amazing new look at Martin Luther King’s March on Washington and his “I Have a Dream” speech. Connelly, the co-author (with Clarence Jones) of “Behind the Dream,” talks about the tense days leading up to the March, with civil rights leaders literally sweating out the final days, hoping that the crowd would show up, that the money would get raised, and that the speeches would get written. On the night before the speech, Connelly explains, his co-author Jones, the road buddy, lawyer and confidant of King, went up to his room to scratch out a draft of the speech. King delivered it verbatim the next day, until prompted to change gears a bit and talk about his dream. The rest, literally, is history.
Matt also talks to Air Force Brigadier General Richard Klumpp. Back in the 90s, when he was still a Major, Rich served as a Military Aide to Vice Presidents Gore and Cheney. Rich pulls back the curtain on those strong silent types who follow the President and Vice President everywhere to ensure the continuity of government, handle the nuclear launch codes, and take care of other security business. Klumpp tells stories from the road, the campaign and transition of 2000, and the differences between Gore and Cheney. After serving as a Military Aide, Klumpp changed seats on Air Force Two and took over as chief pilot for the veep.
Social Security’s trust fund has 20 years to live, according to the 2013 annual report released this morning by the Social Security Trustees.
In our new idea brief we make the policy and political case that a Social Security fix can only be accomplished through a national commission and that it must happen pre-2016. We also examine effective U.S. commissions and identify the critical lessons for structuring a commission to succeed where Simpson-Bowles fell short.
