Measure on same-sex marriage likely on 2024 ballot

A measure giving greater protections to same-sex marriage appears headed for California’s 2024 ballot, and it is drawing comparisons with another vote on a vital social issue: Proposition 1, which voters overwhelmingly approved last year to grant state constitutional guarantees for abortion rights.

The expected same-sex marriage proposal will tread the familiar path of Proposition 1, with likely the same end result: overwhelming voter approval.

Beyond the particulars of the abortion measure, there was an expectation that Proposition 1 would energize voters in favor of Democrats. Exit polling bore that out.

There’s speculation about whether the ballot measure to remove a dormant same-sex marriage ban from the state constitution would have the same effect. That’s possible, but probably unlikely.

This isn’t to say the proposal won’t motivate Democratic-leaning voters or that same-sex marriage has less support in California than abortion rights. But there are different political dynamics between the 2022 and 2024 elections that arguably will make Proposition 1 more impactful than a same-sex marriage measure.

The big reason is that 2024 is a presidential election year, which always has higher turnout than a midterm election — often to the benefit of Democrats.

In other words, the effect same-sex marriage has in motivating voters could be similar to or the same as abortion, but it might be diluted somewhat by the presidential turnout.

Last week, state Sens. Scott Wiener, D-san Francisco, and Evan Low, Dcupertino, proposed a ballot measure to remove the language of Proposition 8 from the California Constitution. The initiative to ban same-sex marriages was approved by voters in 2008.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges that same-sex marriage is constitutionally protected. Public support for same-sex marriage has

grown dramatically since 2008, but because Proposition 8 was effectively nullified, there wasn’t the urgency to remove it from the state constitution.

Now there’s fear that the “zombie” text, as some like to call it, could come alive once again.

Last year, the Supreme Court, with its new conservative majority, voted 5-4 to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision, which for a halfcentury had guaranteed the right to abortion. That decision left the matter up to the states. In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas said the court should revisit other decisions, including Obergefell.

None of the other justices joined him on that, but Thomas, nevertheless, set off alarm bells that another constitutional right established by a previous Supreme Court could be undone.

Hence the motivation to remove Proposition 8 from the state constitution. The ballot measure would keep same-sex marriage legal in California even if Obergefell is struck down.

Wiener and Low need a twothirds majority in both the Assembly and state Senate to put their measure on the ballot. Given Democrats hold such majorities — and are likely to be joined by some Republicans — there’s virtually no doubt the proposal will go before voters in 2024. As with Proposition 1, Gov. Gavin Newsom supports the same-sex marriage proposal.

“Same-sex marriage is the law of the land and Prop. 8 has no place in our constitution,” the governor said in a statement.

The two ballot proposals have much in common. Both involve intensely debated individual rights that, in large part, define the nation’s cultural divide. Both are state constitutional amendments, driven by Supreme Court rulings, and have overlapping constituencies that are highly motivated to see them approved.

Support for same-sex marriage and abortion rights are nearly identical in California, according to a poll released this month by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The survey found 75 percent of likely voters support allowing same-sex couples to marry, while 73 percent said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. (Proposition 1 was approved in November, 67 percent to 33 percent.)

Same-sex marriage was backed by 89 percent of Democrats, 46 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of independents. The right to abortion in all or most cases was supported by 86 percent of Democrats, 45 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of independents.

Solid majorities supported both regardless of age, ethnicity, income or education.

Now for the differences.

The Supreme Court did not overturn the constitutionality of same-sex marriages; only one justice suggested revisiting that issue. The argument can be made that people become more politically animated once a constitutional right has been taken away, rather than threatened.

Despite limits on abortion in various states and the constant pressure from conservatives to do so on a national level, it was only after Roe was overturned that active support for abortion rights exploded so broadly across the body politic.

Several states last year voted in favor of abortion protections or against measures to dismantle them. Despite projections of a Republican landslide last year, Democrats expanded their Senate majority and nearly held on to the House of Representatives because abortion was a top-line election issue.

In states with abortion-related ballot measures, including California, exit surveys revealed about 4 in 10 voters said the Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe played a major role in their decision to vote.

Meanwhile, the Democratic majorities in Congress were joined by some Republicans late last year in passing the Respect for Marriage Act, which requires states to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

Congress last year also repealed the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that defined marriage as between one man and one woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages allowed by other states.

(In contrast, efforts to codify Roe have failed in Congress, and members of the new Republican House majority are pushing bills to greatly limit, if not outlaw, abortion nationally.)

Regardless, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe and Thomas’ opinion made clear that rights once seemingly secure may not be in the future.

Presidential election-year dynamics aside, there will be plenty of voter enthusiasm to make sure the menacing Proposition 8 cannot be revived.

Tweet of the Week

Goes to Jeremy B. White (@Jeremybwhite) of Politico regarding the 1992 election.

“What @Barbaraboxer told me about her and @Senfeinstein in those days: ‘Things that were said at that time were so outrageous — like, I can vote for one woman but I can’t vote for two. There was so much prejudice out there, you can’t even imagine.’ ”