Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) authored legislation calling on voters to remove and replace the Proposition 8 definition, calling it “discriminatory and unconstitutional.”
The move comes amid Democrats’ distrust of the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority. Proponents of Proposition 3 point to a concurring opinion by conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in the 2022 case that overturned Roe v. Wade, granting the right to abortion. Thomas wrote then that the nation’s highest court should reconsider rulings that rely on similar legal reasoning to the landmark abortion case, including those protecting same-sex marriage and access to contraception.
A legislative analysis of the bill said “courts can change” and noted that the current Supreme Court no longer includes two of the justices who supported the landmark 2015 ruling protecting equal marriage rights.
“It is true that marriage equality is still the law in the United States today; however, it is not impossible that this will not always be the case,” the analysis notes.
