Oregon AG Myers makes it 4-4

The Attorney General apparently kept bugging Goobernor Kulongoski enough so that guv came back early, to hear what Hardy Myers had to say about state-sanctioned same-sex marriage.

Here's the opinion. (So far the providing agencies have had very quickly timed postings for the original source documents. It's been helpful).

The basic conclusion is a crumb to opponents, and a big lift to supporters, IMO. Here's the money quote:

(1) Current Oregon laws prohibit county clerks from issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples;
(2) under current law, the legal status of being "married" carries with it legal rights, benefits and obligations; and
(3) the Oregon Supreme Court likely would conclude that withholding from same-sex couples the legal rights benefits and obligations that--under current law--are automatically granted to married couples of the opposite sex likely violates Article I, section 20 of the Oregon Consitution; but
(4) because of the uncertainties about the Article I, Section 20 analysis that the Oregon Supreme Court would bring to bear on the question, it would be unwise to change current state practices until, and unless, a decision by the Supreme Court makes clear, what, if any changes are required.
(emph. mine)

In a nutshell, it's against the law now, but the law's wrong.
I've seen more than one outlet report this tension as "may" be unconstitutional, which from my emphasis in the opinion is clearly a weakly correlated descriptive. "Likely would conclude" for a lawyer isn't definite, but it ain't "may," either. Unfortunately, Kulongoski himself makes this incorrect distinction during his announcement of the ruling, which seems odd (and frankly excuses outlets who used his announcement as their source). There's nothing "may" about Myers' opinion of the constitutionality--putting him in the same specific mind as all the other lawyers who've looked at it so far.

Both Myers and Teddy the K are playing it politically safe here. Which is fine; the path they've laid out for resolution is rational. But it seems kind of strange to admit as the state's lawyer that rights are being unfairly denied, and then to say, "But even though I'm 90% sure, we probably should keep denying those rights until that other 10% comes in." However, it's very possible that everyone could use a bit of a process breather for the time being.

I could find no major bibles that offered the story on its own merits; they were all folded into California stories, as part of the "elsewhere:" gay marriage roundup. That's a shame; this is a broadly predictive ruling that has the benefit of being right in line with everyone else's: Oregon's Constitution prohibits curtailing marriage rights by sexual orientation. Furthermore, this nugget from AP:

Kulongoski, at a news conference, said he would oppose any move by the Legislature to consider sending a measure to the voters to essentially ban gay marriage. Some lawmakers have expressed interest in taking up the topic when the Legislature conducts a June special session on tax reform.

"I will not support putting discrimination into the state constitution or the federal constitution," the governor said. "That is not who we are as a people."

These two items in combination--the Attorney General concluding that gay marriages must be eventually granted, and the Governor declining to support an amendment push--do two things. First, they make the legislature the only truly unknown piece of the puzzle, although a state DOMA failed in 1997. Secondly, they place Oregon once again in the forefront for fully recognized, undisputed same-sex marriages. And why not.

Finally, a great photo picked up by AP. Would you tell THEM they couldn't get married?

You said it, not me

Senator Kyl has given a tease of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's findings on Iraq, to an audience at Council for Foreign Relations. While blame is apparently liberally (small l) spread across administrations and parties (Kyl said literally "nobody is without blame"), it seems that Kyl does make an exception for the administration:

Administration officials had based their comments about Iraq on intelligence assessments, he said. "They did not ... distort, mislead, or misrepresent what the intelligence community said."
(emph. mine)

Then what is their blame, I wonder? Bad penmanship on the written orders?

But then Kyl goes even further, to assert that even THINKING that such a thing might have happened is tantamount to slapping the President with a black glove:

"That charge [exaggeration], if more than just over-the-top bluster, would be close to an allegation of treason -- suggesting that the president deliberately put our young men and women in harm's way for no purpose other than politics," Kyl said.

Yes...and? It would be, wouldn't it?

Election interest up sharply among the young

says the Shorenstein Center at the JFK Government School. Don't let Karl Rove's protestations fool you otherwise; participation in and awareness of the political season are sky high right now. I'll hold off on giving you the conventional wisdom since the CW's taken a beating lately, but either way the chips fall, more involvement is an excellent byproduct. As the story notes, once involved, people tend to stay involved.

(OK, OK. Higher participation from the young and the independent-minded is historically a very good harbinger for the Democratic Party. But don't tell anyone I said so!)

Counter-terrorism in a nutshell

from Kos today. In a somewhat concurrent vein as expressed by Mark Penn at TNR (hat tip PoliticalWire), the last lines of Kos's post deserve to highlight what should be a major theme for Kerry this spring:

FY 2005 Budget Request for Missile Defense: $10.2 billion

FY 2005 Budget Request for Port Security grants: $46 million

The Bush Administration: Wrong on faith-based defense. Criminally negligent on security.

Bush finally finds a totally uncritical audience

in Bay Shore, Long Island. How did George get so lucky in a blue state (although a red area of it)? Here's a clue:

"No speak English," said the first worker, smiling apologetically.

"No speak English," said the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth workers waylaid in the crowd.

...

"I understand him a little bit English," said Nubia Guzman, a packer who said she earns $7.50 an hour after four years on a job that Bush had described in his speech as evidence of the success of his tax cutting economic policies. She has no health coverage.

What did you like about him? she was asked.

"He nice," she said.

How's that for a BC04 bumper sticker in first-generation Hispanic country? "George W Bush in 2004--He Nice!" I suppose the followup negative sticker would be "John Kerry--He Hate Me; Vote Bush--He Nice!" Too late for Sloganator, though.

As for Bush's charming "self-deprecating humor": when your fulsome repertoire of source material is so large, that's got to take away from the charm a little, right?

Stick with me this election season, and we'll do a lot of laughing and crying.

(I saw this before I checked him today, but I'll hat tip Atrios anyway. )

That's some freakin' gall

I have a hard time believing the stones of trying to make this argument:

The Bush camp's math rests on a series of assumptions. Campaign manager Ken Mehlman said the $900 billion reflects independent estimates, which Kerry does not dispute, of the cost of his health care plan over 10 years. Since Kerry's proposed tax hike on the wealthiest Americans would raise about $250 billion during that period -- and he has vowed not to increase the budget deficit -- the Bush team argues that he would have to make up the rest with increased taxes.

So the BC04 argument against spending $65 billion a year to insure very nearly everyone in some kind of health care, is that he'd have to raise taxes more than he says he is? That's really what Bush is saying here? That Kerry couldn't possibly suggest a program for which the money wasn't there?

Medicare: $500+ billion over 10 years; the central benefits don't actually start until 2006, and prods people to pick managed private care. Offset revenues? Wazzat?

Mars: $12 billion or so up front, over 10 years easily $200 billion on development. The administration does claim some kind of accounting switcheroo for the seed money (one imagines by switching back to slide rules for everyone), but the future costs are just out there, baby!

And let's not forget Bush's insistence on making permanent his tax cuts, costing an additional 1.3 TRILLION over the next 10 years, according to CBO.

But what's really absurd is to deride a plan to provide health care to most Americans, not on the merits of the plan (and really, government-provided care should be easy meat for the GOP), but because it costs a fair bit and we don't have the money handy. If the issue is fiscal inexactitude--uh, it's just not a winner for Bush. The man is sitting on the largest monetary deficit and debt pile in history, his sole economic policy tool responsible for easily a third of those annual shortfalls. And he's going to paint Kerry as the spendthrift for trying to insure people?

The campaign team and just the inner circle in general must really be off their compasses from being under siege for 3 years, because they just look adrift.

Basic Rights Oregon, Portland's quiet marriage catalyst

While not taking anything away from the courage and forthrightness of the Multnomah County 4, the group most responsible for forging a path to equal marriage recognition--in what today now looks like the state of least resistance--has largely been ignored. I wanted to say unfortunately ignored, but perhaps in political terms it's better that the MC4 take the bulk of the heat. Not better for the MC4, of course, but the worry about process harming the cause, may have actually deflected attacks by opponents away from this low key advocacy group.

In any case, check out The Oregonian's Thursday profile of Basic Rights Oregon, whose director Roey Thorpe spearheaded the uniquely Portland push for statutorial recognition. While Massachusetts towns were preparing to issue licenses under threat of amendment, and California officials issued them in apparent violation of existing statutes, Thorpe took advantage of the Oregon constitution's broad protections of civil rights based on orientation, and settled on just about the least confrontational method possible: she asked for a legal opinion. That's it. She asked her county officials to query their lawyer whether gays could marry, and the ball was rolling. For a chronological perspective, Willamette Week timelines the process, as far back as Ontario's recognition of same-sex rights in summer 2003.

What fascinates me is not so much the veil of secrecy that surrounded the process, but the organizational support BRO provided to their community in terms of husbanding (!) names of possible license-seekers, arranging friendly clergy and sites for taking vows, and preparing those license-seekers for the media firestorm that would surely erupt--all while managing to stay mostly behind the scenes. One suspects other local HRC-type organizations around the country are watching BRO go, and taking notes. They should be.

Martha's conviction hits some hard

Oh, the humanity!

Legislative attorney makes it 3-3; Myers delays the 4th

As I said, just because I'm not gathering all the gay marriage news that's fit to steal, doesn't mean I'm going to stop following it. For one thing, it looks like it's brewing closer, closer perhaps than even Massachusett's May 17th beginning of legalized gay marriage. The legislative attorney provided a nonbinding legal analysis of Oregon law, and found no differently than the other two lawyers who reviewed it--the equal protection clause of the Oregon constitution appears to validate same sex marriage under its protections. B!x does a good job pulling out the relevant hunks, and what he calls a bombshell, several people I have discussed it with on both sides have called common sense for some time now: just take the word out of government policy entirely.

In related news, Attorney General Hardy Myers has put off his decision until sometime next week (hat tip Communique again). Is that a coincidence that the delay came after the legislative counsel opinion? I doubt it. The absence of the Goobernor seems to be a handy excuse to spend the weekend thinking on't.

Assuming the AG opts not to seek redress, the two options left to opponents are a civil suit and an amendment to the state constitution. The former seems hopeless, given the abject failure of injunctions across the country as to provable harm. And the injunction part is really what matters, because without one, any legal decision (or lack thereof) that validates the licenses becomes the law of the land, and only a favorable suit decision or an outright repeal of gay marriages will stop Oregon from being the first state to confer legal status of marriage to all otherwise qualified comers (uh, so to speak). And it will take some hard, hard people to overturn that equal rights clause in the state constitution and revoke those recognized marriages. I'm from here, and I don't think Oregonians work that way. They may hate taxes, but they don't hate people.

I give

I started cataloging gay marriage news the day they began, in hopes of providing anyone worldwide with news from the newest center of the new national debate. I did reach a fair amount of people from all over, and that is great. I have also discovered a wide variety of Oregon blogs, which I have not all added to the bloglist, in a decision over how not to duplicate what is being done so well at ORBlogs. I will add that one, and fill in others I like which are not registered with them. But the point there is that ORBlogs does something much better than I can in my wee little right frame, and I just would rather avoid being duplicative of, well, anything.

Which brings me to the point of the post, which is that I'm discontinuing the formal tracking and attempt at comprehensive coverage of the events and reaction. Why? Because Communique is already doing an excellent job with it, and it's not sensible to duplicate it even if I could.

That doesn't mean I won't report on it (which in the sphere means "pass on the reports of others"); I just won't attempt to be comprehensive anymore. For a few days Ive had dozens of windows open pulling all the links in. It got a little nuts. I'll leave the archives up, though.

More equal time on Hollywood politics

Most actors of the left are kind of embarassing to me, at least those who I am most likely to hear from. The best of them is Sean Penn, and he talks so obliquely and rarely that it's difficult to use him as an example of a liberal actor mouthpiece. The problem with the rest is that the ones who are smart are the entertainers (like Al Franken) and thus exaggerate as part of the gig, and the ones who are trying to be serious just aren't that smart. Alec Baldwin has done decently with himself on an episode of Bill Maher I happened across, but he shares with people like Garafalo (who I otherwise like) and--oh, let's say Jewel--a surprising lack of elocution and ability to stay under control of their mouths. They sputter, basically.

Apparently Tim Robbins has produced an entire play of sputtering. Bit of a shame--I was proud of Tim for not using his Oscar time in any manipulative fashion, and now from him comes the worst kind of fiction: fiction you took from something that you have already lived through. If it's fiction, I like to think of that as stuff you actually made up. Too many authors these days just write up their own sorry lives and call it fictional art. When was imaginiation written out of the genre? John Irving, Tom Robbins (no relation), Joe Heller, Vonnegut--those people create worlds that look like our own, but that do not exist. I mean, it's fine to adapt events and create a story, but from the review Robbins doesn't even invest in a story, preferring to let the known backstory carry the play. I call that cheating. So not only is he taking a borderline anti-Semitic view of a war that needs no augmentation to slam, he's just making bad art. Which, as an actor, cannot be readily forgiven.

Extremo the Clown for Mayor

Not really, although he is running (hat tip Communique). But it gives me an excuse to give free publicity not to the candidate (although it will be easy enough from the URL), but to his car. He does a fair number of store windows, and more than once he's been parked downtown for a day with this thing, that he works right out of and drives around. The pictures do it pretty fair justice, but it's an impressive spectacle on a sunny day.

Speaking of art, I met Carl Annala Saturday, a local painter of repute. His URL currently lives at work, so you'll have to stay tuned on that one. Or pester your neighborhood exhibitor! If you're the pestering type, anyway.

Update: no wonder I couldn't remember it! It's just so non-intuitive. carlannala.com :rolleyes:

Vive le Art Car!

Gay marriage update

A fairly slow day except for the ruling in late afternoon denying the injunction, which is good but hardly unexpected, given the failure of injunction attempts around the country. This one was notable for the rationale, however--not lack of ripeness or solely failure to represent irreparable harm, but

Koch told attorneys for the Defense of Marriage Coalition that they had not demonstrated their case against the four commissioners would succeed in court.

That means, "I think your case sucks" in English. Folks were still worried about the outcome, however, as they rushed to the county building to get hitched before the ruling. 390 couples succeeded, putting the total over 1,600 since last week.

In other news, a Washington county judge performed a marriage on a license received in Multnomah; the county is still waiting to see what the rulings are before offering them. There's also a fine profile of the attorney whose opinion sparked the licensing, and another open letter from one of the newlyweds.

In the blogosphere, Communique takes a look at Kelly Clark, who argued the position of same sex opponents in the hearing today. The National Review likes what they see, it is written.
The Oregon Blog tries to dissect the Oregonian poll numbers from yesterday. I missed some good things from Chuck Currie over the weekend; here's a notice of a clergy rally in support of the marriages, and an important reminder about the tendency for some proponents of change to worry that things are moving too fast. Blue Cheer has a graphic of the opponents' media . Worldwide Pablo keeps up with the events, and notes a Statesmen-Journal article on positive economic effects. Long Story, Short Pier runs a wedding announcement. Nitecrawler has two posts, one linking to the Village Voice standing up for sex-neutral civil marriage licenses, and the rare opinion that gay marriage isn't moving fast enough if you can't yet marry a Diana Ross impersonator on a whim in Reno.

Polls and more polls!

The hills are alive with the sounds of pollsters! Several major polls have come out all in the last day or two, and uniformly, they continue to work against the President's favor. Trends are flat in some, definitely down in others. And interest in the election is sky-high. Even the non-poll-worshipping people like Talking Points or Sullivan are checking in. The side numbers are often even more fascinating than the main results. Let's rummage through some:

Polling report has three of the bigger boys--CNN/Gallup, WaPo/ABC, and Fox, all of whom are generally more favorable to the President. At best, Bush is stable in all three; he runs even in Fox (with more unsures), still down nine in WaPo, and a little better--within eight--in Gallup. Warning signs from Gallup: Bush is even with men, and 54% say using 9/11 in his ads the way he did was inappropriate. WaPo's details expose weaknesses for Bush in his prior areas of strength--honesty and trustworthiness, the image of a strong leader, and someone who "cares about people like you." Also, on the core issues Kerry is hammering Bush everywhere except Iraq and terrorism.

Rasmussen keeps a daily run of most of the numbers, and it's been within three on either side for weeks now. So far no bump from the start of the campaign of BC04. I think it's a fairly bright outlook on a troubling situation, but their subhead is true that there's a "stable race for the White House"--it's been stably negative for Bush.

Before going further, it must be noted again that state by state numbers are the only ones that matter. Zogby has begun handicapping the states, and the numbers are even more negative for Bush. Kerry has solid leads in states totalling 226 EVs, and the majority of the in-play states are Bush 2000 states. The math isn't hard here; Florida and Ohio nail it down, one or the other go most of the way as well. Even with neither, WI + WA + OR + WV + MN gets him within 1 on all very winnable states. Stay tuned to Zogby's numbers, as well as those of President-Elect for a reading on those important numbers.

The NPR bipartisan polling series always has an excellent graphical summary. They really dig deeply and pull out relevant subsections of the population, and because they use likely voters, they should be getting a more strongly predictive sample. A sampling of the 46 page report:

• Near-highs for percentage feeling the country is "seriously off track," the largest gap (14%) favoring that perception since summer 2002.
  
• Series lows for approval; series highs for disapproval (53%-45%)
  
• "Strongly approve" of the President at series lows for GOP respondents (65%); "Strongly disapprove" at series highs among Democrats (63%)
  
• Series high gap between strong approves and strong disapproves among independents, 13% (35%-22%)
  
• Stable Bush general election edge, within the margin, since fall of 2003 (currently 47%-45%)
  
• First clear lead for Kerry among independents (45%-36%, showing a lot of undecideds still)
  
• Bush somewhat ahead among Iraq or other veterans and their family/friends, and with double digit preference among Vietnam veterans
  
• Much of Bush's lead is built in areas he already commands--rural "red states" that were strongly for him in 2000. By contrast, he runs just within the margin in narrowly red states, is behind and outside the margin in lean-blue states, and behind by double digits in firm blue states. Bush is well ahead in rural areas, even in the suburbs, and well behind in the cities.
  
• swing state (less than 5% either way) preferences continue to show an even split, with a slight Kerry trend
  
• Interest in the election is as great currently as it has been in October for the past two previous cycles. That suggests potentially high relative participation in the fall. Democrats are more energized, particularly at the edges, then Republicans.
  
• Bush has a lot of work to do with "hard independents;" they give solid leads to "on the wrong track," Bush disapproval, and votes against in the election.
  
• Of the top nine concerns most on voters' minds, Kerry has large leads in six of them. For the most popular answer, "economy and jobs," given by nearly half of respondents, Kerry leads by 13. Bush crushes on moral values and the war on terrorism, but those two only combine for 43% of the response total. The progress of the war in Iraq is also trending heavily towards Kerry.

There is an extended section on position language testing, which frankly I find hard to parse. The construction of the candidates' positions is fine, but the actual scripting carries some loaded words. They test the viability of negative attacks on Kerry for Bush's benefit, but Kerry's position seems to have a uniform amount of negativity towards Bush (as opposed to being neutral on him, and/or positive for Kerry). The one thing I found useful to note was that the differences in readings were small, and if anything, negativity against Kerry only firmed up both sides.

If your brain isn't flooded enough, here's a link to the National Election Surveys from University of Michigan, done every cycle since 1948. I plan to dive into it myself as the season progresses. Their work is becoming ever more of a staple for mass release of polling research--they do the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the most trusted consumer confidence poll, Monitoring the Future--on teen behaviors--and some of the best election work in the business.

If good things don't start happening for Bush soon, he is in serious trouble. He has a lot of work to do capturing the swing voters, and the negative strategy is least likely to work on them without blowback.

A fine evening of American Northwest Rock and Roll

Through a previously electronic relationship with the singer for Mudhoney, I had the special treat of catching them at the Crystal Ballroom last night with The Melvins, as their guests. Aside from being enormously capable of slinging the rock as hard as when I started listening to them 15 years ago, they were tremendously generous hosts and fine people to talk to. The pair are playing a 20th anniversary show in Olympia on the anniversary date, at the first venue the Melvins destroyed (er, played at). Thanks for bringing the celebration to Portland!

Weekend gay marriage update

Obviously not much in the way of filings or press conferences over the weekend, but a couple of days for people to catch their breaths and ponder or pontifficate (pun intended). The Oregonian is still hot on the case, pumping out several pieces the last two days.

The head piece for the gay marriage section (still fronting the top of the OregonLive pages) reports the poll conducted for the Oregonian during the week, showing 54% opposed. The poll isn't going to have any impact on judicial resolution, and the numbers aren't strong enough for firm legislative state action along the lines of an amendment. Which is not to say one won't necessarily happen, but I think David Reinhard is jumping the gun a little bit. He clearly seems a little ticked.

On the subject of commentaries--and there have been several good ones--David Sarasohn is the first person in ANY context I've read who has recognized what the paradigm shift is likely to be: civil unions are now the moderate, fallback position on the issue. The short term political issue is that Bush's push for amendment may have put the spirit into his base, while the usual argument is that it's gay marriage supporters who have been violated for the last time. The two extremes have been set, and so what's the natural outcome? Somewhere in the middle--civil unions. We'll see, but I think Sarasohn's perceptive. The main editorial for Saturday takes what I think so far is a unique position--allow the marriages, recall the commissioners. Frankly, if defeatist capitulation to history and the head of Diane Linn is the best the Prolegonian can muster, I'll take it. Hey, you know whose feelings I care the least about? The media's. Apparently they have to cover an issue they actually have feelings about, and do it fairly. I'm not sure which new discovery of theirs bothers me more: having feelings, or trying to ignore them.

Among the supposedly objective stories we find:

• An unfortunately excerpted Q&A with Naito, Linn and the County Attorney Sowle
  
• A look at the advocate catalyst of the policy shift, Basic Rights Oregon, and their leader Roey Thorpe, who began getting heat from her constituency and passed it on down the line even as far as Ted Kulongoski. Impressive!
  
• A primer on county and state laws, helpful for context
  
• Churches around the city who are validating the marriages spiritually
  
• Personal story #14252 (I know, that's cold--they've moved me too. After a while they kind of run together for me, though).
  
• This one blames Queer Eye and Zoe Trope, a not-novel idea akin to Judas Priest being the inspiration for group suicide
  
• And this is technically outside my purview, but it's relevant because of geographical proximity: Seattle plans to recognize outside marriages for city workers. Why would this be relevant here, I wonder? Hmmmm. Here's a hint--the bus schedule from Union Station to 501 Hawthorne.

Updates from the blogosphere later.