roundtable. howard, susan, and perry. and you all heard about the big castrater, of course the hog castrater. now the cockfighter is back. i back. mitch mcconnell is being challenges for his seat. beven stumbled badly in that race after attending a rally. there s such a thing. i ve never been to a dock fight, i don t condone dock fighting, here s the thing, i m not going to disparage people for what they do. the founding fathers were all actively involved in this and always have been. washington, the well known cock fighter. on tuesday, came in ahead by just 100 votes in a race to become the gop candidate for governor in the blue grass state, the final outcome won t be known for a few days.
most of them think it is a complete ban on abortion, it will not. it will protect the health of women in texas. they re vulnerable, don t always ask questions, don t know the doctor, we re going to imme have a complication. state senator wendy davis from fort worth filibustering little more than ten hours, getting some help from the crowd in the chamber there, pushed the deadline past where they could pass the abortion bill in texas, and the governor is calling back lawmakers for a special session to do just that. we are back with the panel. susan, your take on the back and forth. it looks like just by numbers, they have the votes to move it through now. now that he is calling the special session, surely they ll have it. it was handled badly. i have to give props to texas for making somebody filibuster, instead of doing what they do in the senate, threaten a
conclusion. susan, on doma, it essentially is saying gay couples from states where it is legal can now receive federal benefits, married federal benefits. it does not effect the 37 other states that do not have gay marriage, at least not yet. right, it doesn t, and marriage has always traditionally been left to the states. i think what will be interesting to see is whether the obama administration rewrites the rules so if you re married in a state where they have gay marriage and move to another state where they don t have gay marriage, whether you can continue to get the benefits. what if you get married in massachusetts and retire in florida, as people want to do. would your spouse get social security benefits for same-sex marriage. so it may not matter that much. it matters symbolically for people if they can or cannot get married in a particular state, but most benefits are federal benefits, they re not really state issues. that s what s going to matter. charles, your thought
saying we re not going to enforce it. it will be interesting to see if it applies to california or more broadly. susan? i mean, the whole proposition system in california has always baffled me, it is amazing how many things they let people weigh on that are contradictory. don t want taxes raised but spend money on this. there s always been that tension there. i m not surprised that justice roberts came down the way he did. they don t want every boez oh coming before the court saying i don t like this law and i am taking it to the higher court. the jurisdictional issue is important to the courts. and the two decisions are contradictory on that issue. they argue that they re going to toss or punt on the proposition 8 because the government wouldn t defend it. but they have an extensive ruling on doma where the federal government wouldn t defend it. that is an obvious contradiction. all it means is they weren t interested in having a fight over prop 8 and they were interested in hav
defend constitutionality of a state statute when state officials have chosen not to, we decline to do so for the first time here because petitioners have not satisfied their burden to demonstrate standing to appeal the judgment of district court, ninth circuit, was without jurisdiction to consider the appeal. judgment of ninth circuit is vacated, the case is remanned with instructions to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. short answer to that, the supreme court kicked it back to the lowest court which ruled prop 8 was unconstitutional. on doma, defense of marriage act, it, too, rendered unconstitutional by an opinion by anthony kennedy, doma s principal effect is to identify and make unequal a subset of state sanctioned marriage. the principle purpose to impose inequality, not for other reasons like governmental efficiency. let s bring in the panel. steve haze, susan mill began,