Assemblyman Evan Lowe (D-Campbell) has drafted legislation asking voters to remove and replace the Proposition 8 definition, calling it “discriminatory and unconstitutional.”
The measure comes amid distrust among Democrats of the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court. Supporters of Proposition 3 point to conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s unanimous opinion in the 2022 case that overturned Roe v. Wade, which established a right to abortion. Thomas wrote at the time that the U.S. Supreme Court should reconsider rulings that relied on similar legal reasoning to the landmark abortion case, including rulings protecting same-sex marriage and contraception.
A legislative analysis of the bill said “the courts can change,” noting that the current Supreme Court no longer includes the two justices who upheld the landmark 2015 ruling protecting equal marriage rights.
“It is true that marriage equality is still the law of the nation in the United States; however, it is not impossible that this will always be the case,” the analysis said.
