![]() ![]() ![]() The - the legislators in the Karcher case had no individual particularized injury, and yet this Court recognized they were proper representatives of the COOPER: Your Honor, the - the question before the Court, I would submit, is not the injury to the individual proponents it's the injury to the State. JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: But can you tell me - that's a factual background with respect to their right to put the ballot initiative on the ballot, but how does it create an injury to them separate from that of every other taxpayer to have laws enforced? COOPER: But of course it is, and I think the key. So these five proponents were required at all times to act in unison, so that distinguishes - and to register and to pay money for the - so in that sense it's different from simply saying any citizen. But in this case the proponents, number one, must give their official address, they must pay money, and they must all act in unison under California law. JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, the Chief - the Chief Justice and Justice Kagan have given a proper hypothetical to test your theory. And if the State's public officials decline to do that, it is within the State's authority surely, I would submit, to identify, if not all - any citizen or at least supporter of the measure, certainly those, that that very clear and identifiable group of citizens. COOPER: But, Your Honor, I guess the point I want to make is that there is no question the State has standing, the State itself has standing to represent its own interests in the validity of its own enactments. ![]() And I don't think we've ever allowed anything like that. That - that may be true in terms of who they want to represent, but - but a State can't authorize anyone to proceed in Federal court, because that would leave the definition under Article III of the Federal Constitution as to who can bring - who has standing to bring claims up to each State. It very well might be able to decide that any citizen could step forward and represent the interests of the State and the people in that State -ĬHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, that would be - I'm sorry, are you finished?ĬHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Okay. COOPER: Your Honor, I think it very well might. JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, I just - if you would on the hypothetical: Could a State just assign to anybody the ability to do this? It's - it's by no means the question before the Court, because - because it isn't any citizen, it's - it is the - it is the official proponents that have a specific and - and carefully detailed. COOPER: Justice Kagan, that would be a - a very tough question. JUSTICE KAGAN: - could - could the State assign to any citizen the rights to defend a judgment of this kind? Nor did the legislative leaders in the Karcher case have. JUSTICE SCALIA: - because the law says he can defend it. JUSTICE SCALIA: But - but he can defend it, can't he. JUSTICE SCALIA: I guess the attorney general of this State doesn't have any proprietary interest either, does he? COOPER: They're distinguishable, Your Honor, because the Constitution of the State of California and its election code provide, according to the unanimous interpretation of the California Supreme Court, that the official proponents, in addition to the other official responsibilities and authorities that they have in the initiative process, that those official proponents also have the authority and the responsibility to defend the validity of that initiative. So how are they distinguishable from the California citizenry in general? It's law for them just as it is for everyone else. JUSTICE GINSBURG: Well, this is - this is - the concern is certainly, the proponents are interested in getting it on the ballot and seeing that all of the proper procedures are followed, but once it's passed, they have no proprietary interest in it. But the Court has never had before it a clear expression from a unanimous State's high court that. COOPER: No, Your Honor, the Court has not done that. JUSTICE GINSBURG: Have we ever granted standing to proponents of ballot initiatives? Your Honor, the official proponents of Proposition 8, the initiative, have standing to defend that measure before this Court as representatives of the people and the State of California to defend the validity of a measure that they brought forward. Maybe it'd be best if you could begin with the standing issue. Cooper, we have jurisdictional and merits issues here. New York's highest court, in a case similar to this one, remarked that until quite recently, it was an accepted truth for almost everyone who ever lived in any society in which marriage existed -ĬHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. ![]() CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: We'll hear argument this morning in Case 12-144, Hollingsworth v. ![]()
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