Vikram Amar: The California Supreme Court’s Delicate Position in the Challenge to Prop. 8, and the Hurdle for Challengers: Part Three in a Series

12/19/08 Findlaw's writ: This is the third article in a multi-part series on the legal challenges to Prop. 8. Vikram Amar, a UC Davis Law Professor and constitutional scholar, discusses two conditions that the Court must satisfy to gain acceptance of a decision to invalidate Prop. 8:

1. If such a decision were "not actually dictated by past precedent, then the opinion would at least need to demonstrate its firm foundation in past cases."

2. "[T]he theory of "revision" the opinion adopts would have to be defensible in its own right." It must represent "a coherent and attractive way of limiting voter discretion that won't require the drawing of arbitrary lines."