The question is: will they replace him with a Democrat? Or will they pick some scary right-winger who’ll put the full weight of the state government behind an anti-gay and anti-feminist agenda? Given California’s long history of electing conservative GOP governors, there’s much reason to fear we’ll end up with somebody much worse than Schwarzenegger.

One, this whole affair isn’t about Arnie. He’s not a judge, let alone a state Supreme Court justice. It’s Arnie’s duplicity–he clearly and openly acknowledges the Court’s verdict which killed Prop 22, and which also invalidates 8 through black-letter law, but yet HE tries to dance away from direct responsibility. No sir, that doesn’t work.

Two, Arnie has done next to nothing to deal with California’s problems. Its biggest problem isn’t gay marriage or water rights or seismic retrofits–it’s money, especially state revenues and the clusterfuck called Prop 13. If California had to meet the same standards for balanced budget as Ohio, Cali would be tits-up within hours. So this “moderate” Republican has really done nothing to fix the problems. He leaves a constitutional landmine to whoever will be sucker enough to grab it, and the state’s finances are once again left to the most creative accountant. We’ve already seen what creative accounting can do. This isn’t leadership, it’s opportunism. Arnie is no statesman, Jack, and his power to “unify” is something he has chosen to sacrifice to an as-yet-unspoken expediency. On that count, he’s worse than Bush, because Arnie has had real public support, but he’s consciously chosen to squander it.

Feinstein/Schwarzenegger trade? Feinstein has picked some funny times to be vocal or non-vocal in her gay advocacy. Ditto Arnie. Both have shown some pretty opportunistic behavior, though she has better history.

Gray Davis was turfed because of the issue of giving state driver’s licenses to illegal residents. Why do it? Because, if you’re in an accident, your insurance company wants to know who hit you. Your cousin Pete could run his 150 into your Taurus, and you make money; in California, it was illegals who ditched vehicles which did damage to other vehicles and property. If you live in Porterville, or Lindsay, or Hanford, you probably know about this. This is small-town Central Valley. You don’t want to validate the presence of illegal aliens; you want your insurance company to pay you for your totaled car, your dead cattle, your crushed grapevines. You paid insurance, you want a pay-out. Simple capitalism, right? That’s why Gray Davis pushed to give driver’s licenses to illegal aliens–so there was at least a legal path, and law-abiding Californians would not suffer unduly because of illegals. Instead, this was used against him, and yet the damage goes on. What has Arnie done to fix it? Maybe nothing?

Leave the Feds and the Mormons and the other wingnuts out of this. It’s a California constitutional matter. It will affect every American, but it’s still a California matter.

It took Nancy Pelosi a whole week to issue a statement condemning the passage of the amendment. And her district includes the Castro neighbornood of San Francisco. Because of federal politics, she can’t even comment on an issue that affects many of her own constituents. The “Blue Dogs” and “Dixiecrats” in the House wanted her to keep quiet because they’re afraid it might be used against them in 2010. And knowing the Republicans, it most certainly will.

Lets face it, the Democratic landslide that propelled Obama to the White House has everything to do with Republican incompetence and corruption. It doesn’t mean this country is – nationally – any less socially conservative than it was in 2004.

There is abundant reason to think that Prop 8 will be shot down by the California Supreme Court. No, they’re not going to be eager to do that; but neither are they going to be eager to invalidate their own action from earlier this year. Prop 8 can’t stand if Prop 22 was a violation of civil rights.

The case(s) may have to work through the state court system, just as the gay marriage cases did. In some respects, it would be easier to boot it directly to the Supreme Court, since this is a retread of earlier litigation. The Supreme Court can easily invalidate Prop 8 because it’s the same civil rights infringement as Prop 22 was. Sadly for the GOP and the Mormons, this is already black letter law, and the justices would completely discredit themselves if they decided that what was a civil right on Monday could magically stop being a civil right on Tuesday. Don’t Republicans always say that judges should follow the Constitution? That would seem to apply at state level, in which case they have to acquiesce to the invalidation of 8.