states because the states determined that those marriages should be entitled to the same protection and dignity of marriage that opposite sex couples have when they get married and the federal government can t discriminate because it doesn t like same-sex marriages. andrew, where do you rank it? i agree with amy. i think that especially the windsor case on doma is a very important case for gay rights. not just because of its holding and what it does for the federal issue here, which is basically saying that anyone who has a legal same-sex marriage has to be treated as married by the federal government. but also i think there s a number of things in the opinion from the court that at least suggests potential successes in future challenges by gay rights advocates. i think a lot of the language the court used in its opinion, talking about the special dignity of these unions and talking about the way that the children in same-sex unions feel about their parents and how the government s
surprising opinions from the term. there were signals in this case the court was going to do something perhaps pretty momentous with affirmative action. in part because it really was a real question why the court would take this case unless it was to issue some new decision on affirmative action. it wasn t that long ago that the court in two opinions from michigan sort of told us what its views were on affirmative action and i think a lot of people thought that this case was one that the court took in order to say something new. and especially since it took them the whole term to issue an opinion. a lot of folks i think would have expected something pretty momento momentous. and instead it was really a bit of just the court saying look, the court below needs to do this again but not saying much new in terms of the law of affirmative action. okay. of course we re not done talking about these cases, but up next we re going to talk about the historic opinions that sent same-sex couple
all right. we had some issues there with dan simon. congratulations to them. but i want to get back to our panel now. none of that would have been possible without those historic opinions we saw wednesday. perry very very hollingsworth, which effectively struck down california s prop 8. and u.s. versus windsor that struck down a key part of the defense of marriage act that denied benefits to legally married same-sex couples. and again i m joined now from washington by amy howe, an attorney who has argued before the court, and from denver andrew crespo, former harvard law review president who clerked for two justices. so where do you rank the decision on doma and prop 8 in terms of landmark supreme court cases? first to you, amy. i think it s pretty high up there. the supreme court had had a couple of other cases dealing with gay rights in the last 15 years or so. but this one was really huge in terms of five members of the court saying that same-sex marriages were approved in these
way that it had before. the only real question was exactly what the court was going to do. so what the court wound up doing was they upheld section 5 of the voting rights act which requires state and local governments with a history of diskrings to go to the federal government and get approval before they can make any changes to the voting procedures. even things like moving a polling place across the street. so the court left that intact. it said you can still have that. but you need to change the criteria that you use to figure out who s covered. it sent the ball back across the street to congress to come up with a new coverage formula. but nobody expects that to happen anytime soon. yeah. it left the voting rights pretty much intact but it was just a part of it that changed. andrew, in the fisher case the court could have torn down the policy of affirmative action but it didn t do it. are you surprised the court gave us that decision? i am surprised.
of millions of americans. so for more on this we re joined now by two people who know the court inside and out. amy howe is an attorney who has argued two cases before the court. and since 2003 has worked at scotus blog, the best resource on the web for understanding the court. she s in washington. i kept refreshing and refreshing and refreshing and e. freshing my twitter follow to scotus blog on wednesday. and andrew crespo was the first hispanic president of the harvard law review and clerked for not one but two supreme court justices and he joins us from denver. very accomplished folks here. so thanks for joining us. so amy, first to you. some say the court effectively gutted the voting rights act in the shelby county case. is that a fair conclusion? and was the decision surprising to you? i think it is a fair conclusion. the decision wasn t at all surprising in the sense that the voting rights act was not going to work after this week the same