In Washington state, voters defeated I-330, a doctor-backed plan to limit medical malpractice awards and lawyers’ fees, by about a 54-46 margin, while also drubbing I-336. a lawyer-backed alternative (Seattle P-I, Seattle Times). California voters trounced, by a 61-39 margin, Proposition 79, which would have regulated drug prices via freelance lawsuits among other means; they defeated Proposition 78, a drug-industry-backed alternative, by nearly as wide a margin. (L.A. Times, Sacramento Bee). In Virginia, former Richmond mayor and Democrat Tim Kaine, who had been criticized by the American Justice Partnership (Nov. 2), won the governorship anyway (Wash. Post). Texas voters easily passed an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment that Houston attorney Warren Cole, chairman of the State Bar of Texas’ family law section, called “horribly drafted” and which would prohibit the recognition of any “legal status” that is “similar to marriage” (more from Cathy Young)(see yesterday’s post) (Dallas Morning News) (cross-posted at Point of Law).
One Comment
As I commented before about “marriage amendments”, I see the Texas amendment as a sort of “line in the sand”. From what I’ve seen, it IS poorly drafted, and there will probably be some repercussions of that, but people pass these things to prevent what happened in Mass., the belief being that it’s easier to clean up a poorly drafted amendment than try to recover from a bad state supreme court decision (visions of Roe v Wade, for instance).
Actually, I lay the blame for such a bad amendment squarely at the feet of the Roe v Wade jusices and the Mass supremes.