Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Paul,Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, speaks on the U.S. Supreme Court steps after arguing against the Defense of Marriage Act for her client Edith Windsor, in the pink scarf.
Updated 5:59 p.m.
Elizabeth Wydra spent the past two days watching attorneys argue about same-sex marriage. It was, the appellate advocate said, a "Super Bowl of Supreme Court arguments" featuring major stars including Paul Clement of Bancroft and deputy solicitor general Sri Srinivasan.
"Even though I wish Paul Clement played on my team more often, he’s still beautiful to watch," said Wydra, chief counsel at the Constitutional Accountability Center, who helped draft an amicus brief against the Defense of Marriage Act and followed Wednesday’s arguments from the crowded court’s lawyer’s lounge.
Even outside the formal arguments, the personal lives and relationships of lawyers became highlights of the same-sex marriage debate.
It started on the courthouse steps on Tuesday, when David Boies of Boies, Schiller and Flexner opened a press conference by putting an arm around Ted Olson of Gibson Dunn, a frequent courtroom foe but his ally in the case against Proposition 8, California’s same-sex marriage ban, the focus of the first day’s arguments.
"Those of you who were in court today saw why I like it a lot better when this guy is on my side as opposed to against me," Boies said.
"We come from different perspectives on the political spectrum so to speak, but our coming together is intended to make the point to America that this is not a democratic issue, or republican issue, or conservative or liberal, this is an issue of American constitutional rights," Olson said.
Inside the Capitol on Wednesday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) predicted the Defense of Marriage Act would be found unconstitutional, and reminded the press corps that she had correctly predicted the Court’s decision in the Affordable Care Act case.
She gave this characterization of Clement, the former solicitor general hired by House Republicans to defend DOMA for as much as $3 million in taxpayer money: "The spokesperson for DOMA—what a stale role to play in life."
During a rally in front of the Supreme Court building on Wednesday, Supreme Court bar member Barry Lynn used his own family to make a point to a crowd of same-sex marriage supporters. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, has two cases he hopes the Supreme Court will hear soon.
"I have been married to my wife Joanne for the past 42 years. We have two children – one girl, one boy. We have just what one anti-equality speaker on the radio yesterday said was the dream American family," Lynn said.
"But yesterday, right here, I was in tears…because I was listening to families whose dreams cannot be fulfilled. They can't be fulfilled for them because of the very law that's being debated in those walls behind us today," Lynn said.
Also on Wednesday, news reporters seemed to agree that a comment by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg was one of the emotional high points of the arguments. She characterized states as offering "two kinds of marriage: real marriage and then this sort of skim milk marriage."
Afterward, Roberta Kaplan, a partner at Paul,Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison who represented the plaintiff, described her reaction to Ginsberg’s comment in this way: "I think the Court can't help but be affected by the way that this statute writes gay people and gay married couples out of the federal code," Kaplan said.
Lawyers who argued against Proposition 8 and DOMA took another strategy. They stayed away from the spotlight, avoiding the press directly after the arguments. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has not made any statements about the arguments.
The only peep came from from a Boehner spokesman, who told Politico why the group defended DOMA. “A law’s constitutionality is determined by the courts — not by the Department of Justice,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. “As long as the Obama administration refuses to exercise its responsibility, we will.”
National Law Journal reporter Andrew Ramonas and intern Mounira Al Hmoud contributed to this report. Photo by The National Law Journal's Diego M. Radzinschi.
I'm in favor of finding standing in both cases, for just the reason Boehner's spokesman gave. Somebody's got to speak for the law, so long as the law is on the books, or America can't know what the law is. It's not only the province but also the duty of the Supreme Court to decide what the law is.
Yes, I realize that dismissing the Prop8 appeal reinstates gay marriage in California, and dismissing the Windsor appeal upholds equality in the 2nd Circuit, while in each case affirming standing risks a ruling on the merits that I won't like (and that may deeply harm America). But what about the law in the rest of the nation? What about amended/superseding statutes? What about the inevitable Circuit splits? The cases cry out for decision.
Yes, I realize that the Prop8 argument hit on a valid point when it was noted that there's no "fiduciary" duty of the appellants to the State that passed the law, but standing should hinge also on what's at stake and how faithfully the litigant will pursue the cause.
The doctrine of standing should not be a formula or a straitjacket. It should be applied so as to maximize its goal, to fulfill its purpose.
Posted by: Avon | March 27, 2013 at 08:43 PM