March 17, 2004

(Updated) Oregon Supreme Court Asks For Arguments On 'Standing'

Preliminary Step In Lawsuit By Portland Activist And Talk Show Host

Note: This post has been updated. Any and all updates appear at the end of the original post.

Earlier this evening, the Associated Press reported that the Oregon Supreme Court has asked lawyers "to submit written arguments by noon Monday on whether a Portland citizen had adequate grounds to bring a lawsuit asking the state's top court to order Multnomah County to stop issuing same-sex marriage licenses."

Vance Day, a Salem lawyer involved with the religious groups in the lawsuit, said a second county's decision to violate the state's marriage law is all the more reason for the Supreme Court to get involved.
"We're saying the law has to be followed," Day said.
...
Day, who is active in Marion County GOP politics, said [Bruce] Broussard was "outraged" by Multnomah County's action and approached him about a possible legal challenge to it.
Day said Broussard doesn't have to show he is adversely affected personally by the county's action in order to contest it.
"Any citizen can be aggrieved in a case where the law is not being followed," Day said.

We haven't yet had the opportunity to obtain information regarding the lawsuit Bruce Broussard filed, so we don't have anything in particular to say about the question of standing, since we don't know the basis of the suit. However, some questions regarding standing were made during the temporary restraining order hearing for Defense of Marriage Coalition v. Multnomah County here in Multnomah County before Judge Dale Koch, and challenges to the plaintiffs' standing in that case didn't appear to get anywhere.

March 18, 2004

Update

According to today's Statesman Journal, the request of the Oregon Supreme Court for written arguments also applies to the case brought a week ago by the Florida-based Liberty Counsel and Donald Wildmon's American Family Association.

Once the court receives these arguments on plaintiffs' standing, they "then can decide whether it wants to intervene immediately or await action on other lawsuits in lower courts." But these lawsuits may not result in much:

Gilbert Carrasco, a law professor at Willamette University, said these may not be the legal test cases that all sides are seeking in the Oregon Supreme Court.
"Usually, these cases go up through the courts on grounds that someone has been denied a marriage license and can show there is an injury," said Carrasco, a former U.S. Justice Department lawyer.
"Here you have the opposite situation, where the person suing has not been denied anything and wants other people to be denied something that people are getting. So I think it's difficult to argue from that posture there is an injury."

According to the article, Governor Ted Kulongoski and Attorney General Hardy Myers may "have a decision shortly." It also has a brief profile of the Court and its processes.

Posted at 09:20 PM | PermalinkComments (1) | TrackBacks (2)
More In Law Enforcement & Legal Issues, Metro-Area Politics, Same-Sex Marriage, State of Oregon

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Comments (1)

  1. Jack Bog on 18 Mar 2004

    If standing is the issue, Attorney General Myers would likely have standing. He claims he wants a speedy court resolution -- if anyone could make that happen, he could. But he's running for re-election, and so it will be interesting to see how low he can keep his head.

Trackbacks (2)

  1. His life with the ghosts of Bush. on 30 Aug 2004

    In the spirit of Roy Edroso’s unhealthy (but amusing; yea, amusing unto death) fixation on that perennial reactionary empowerment fantasy, “Life Among the Liberals,” I offer up this link to Rick Perlstein’s “The Church of...

  2. His life with the ghosts of Bush. on 30 Aug 2004

    In the spirit of Roy Edroso’s unhealthy (but amusing; yea, amusing unto death) fixation on that perennial reactionary empowerment fantasy, “Life Among the Liberals,” I offer up this link to Rick Perlstein’s “The Church of...