Will Meg Whitman Campaign on California Proposition 8, Gay Marriage and The Rule of Law?

Patterico raises the issue.

Republican Meg Whitman now has a wedge issue in the California governor’s race, if she chooses to use it.

She also has a more subtle but much stronger issue: the responsibility of elected officials to defend the people’s laws.

Here’s why. The Ninth Circuit’s briefing schedule calls for the last brief to be filed by Prop. 8 supporters on November 1, 2010. The court has ordered the parties to discuss whether the
proposition’s defenders have standing on their own, given that the Attorney General and the Governor failed to fight for the law in court.

But here’s the thing: come November, there will be a new Attorney General in California  and perhaps more important, a new Governor. They will probably be sworn in before the appeals are decided. And the identity of the new Governor will probably decide whether California’s elected officials are going to join the appeal. (This assumes that procedural time limits don’t prevent them from joining an ongoing appeal by intervenor defendants. I dont know the answer to this question, but my educated guess is that there would be no procedural bar, as long as the appeal is still live.)

Our current Attorney General, Jerry Brown, refused to defend Prop. 8 and would continue this path as Governor. Meg Whitman, by contrast, was a Prop. 8 supporter. Presumably she would move to join the appeal if elected.

Since Meg Whitman campaigned for California Proposition 8 and presumably donated money to the cause, I would think this issue will raise itself sometime during the campaign. Moreover, Whitman is very close to LDS-Mormon former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and the California LDS community.

My bet is that Whitman uses targeted direct mail to the Pro-Proposition 8 Protect Marriage list shortly before the early voting/absentee voter ballot request time. Also, flyers will appear at many Christian, especially Roman Catholic and LDS churches during this time. Undoubtedly, there will be a sermon/homily or two.

So, the answer is yes.