Wednesday Open Thread

Welcome to your Wednesday open thread. I have a week full of all day meetings. I can’t believe how tired sitting around and thinking all day makes you. It’s amazing. What’s going on in your life?

We had a bit of good news yesterday – a judge refused to overturn the California Prop 8 decision because the presiding judge is gay.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge James Ware’s ruling Tuesday rejected arguments that former Chief Judge Vaughn Walker would potentially benefit from declaring the ban unconstitutional.

In his 19-page decision — a response to the first attempt in the nation to disqualify a judge based on sexual orientation — Ware had a bigger message. Gay judges, he said, are just like minority and female jurists: They can be impartial, too, even in cases that might affect them.

“We all have an equal stake in a case that challenges the constitutionality of a restriction on a fundamental right,” he wrote. “The single characteristic that Judge Walker shares with the plaintiffs, albeit one that might not have been shared with the majority of Californians, gave him no greater interest in a proper decision on the merits than would exist for any other judge or citizen.”

This is good news! I think it sets a terrible precedent – that only straight white male judges are impartial (like they have no stake in society). This was the same arguments used in opposition to Sonia Sotomayor and her “wise Latina” remark. How dare she imply that she could make better decisions than white men. It was also implicit in the sly innuendos that she was somehow dumber than other justices, despite her impeccable credentials.

You’ve probably already heard this, but yesterday the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the Walker union-busting budget. The money the RW had to pour into the Supreme Court race paid off, David Prosser was in the majority on the decision.

A Dane County judge overstepped her authority when she voided Gov. Scott Walker’s measure limiting public sector collective bargaining, the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a fractious 4-3 decision.

In a nine-page decision — followed by about 60 pages of concurring and dissenting opinions — the court’s conservative majority said Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi “usurped the legislative power which the Wisconsin constitution grants exclusively to the Legislature” when she voided the law.

I don’t think this means that it’s over, but it’s going to be a lot more difficult to overturn this ruling. The only upside I see is that the decision should keep the Walker budget and worker’s rights in the spotlight for the recall elections.