Schwarzenegger Listens to the Constituents

Looks like Arnold is actually doing what politicians are supposed to do.

A day after California's Legislature became the first in the nation to pass a bill to legalize same-sex marriage, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced through an aide Wednesday that he would veto the measure "out of respect for the will of the people." In a careful statement, Schwarzenegger press secretary Margita Thompson invoked the voter approval in March 2000 of Proposition 22, which said: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." "The governor believes the matter should be determined not by legislative action — which would be unconstitutional — but by court decision or another vote of the people of our state," the statement said. "We cannot have a system where the people vote and the Legislature derails that vote." The statement also said Schwarzenegger "believes that gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against." It did not offer his opinion on same-sex marriage, but when asked about it last year, the governor said, "I don't care one way or the other." The California Supreme Court is likely to decide next year whether Proposition 22 and other state laws that define marriage are constitutional.

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable action to me. He doesn't agree with it fully, but the vote for Prop 22 made it clear that the citizens of California want marriage to be restrictively defined. I don't know if the law has parallel protections for same sex marriages, but I'm guessing it probably already does.

You can read the outrage statements in the article. Not really worth addressing here. Funny that Arnold does the right things and then gets pummeled in the polls. You'd think that he'd get more support on issues where he obviously was following a voter mandate.

You'd also wonder how a legislature could pass a bill that so obviously flies in the face of the voter proposition. I'm thinking some of those politicians are really not paying attention.