Chief Magistrate Candy Wagahoff Dale doesn’t have a wikipedia page. Judge Orlando Garcia does, but it is less than a dozen lines long. If you google the name “Richard Young” you are likely to stumble upon the actor or the photographer before the jurist.
These relatively unknown individuals are redefining the landscape in the battle for marriage equality and civil rights. Judges across the country have issued the rulings that have resulted in over a dozen states trashing their laws banning marriage equality. Every time you hear a headline about an anti-equality law being declared unconstitutional, that decision is coming from these district jurists who most people have never heard of.
People have a laser focus on the Presidency, but oftentimes we forget the critical judicial appointments coming from the White House other than those for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has a phenomenal importance on this issue -- indeed, many if not most of the subsequent lower court rulings may have been impossible without the Supreme Court’s decision in Windsor -- but lower court appointments have made it possible to carry momentum on this issue.
From a political standpoint then, it becomes both interesting and important to ask: Who is making these appointments?
Of the 12 rulings that have somehow rejected or scaled back anti-equality laws (the scope of each ruling varies), 8 were made by justices appointed by Democratic Presidents. Only two were made by jurists appointed by Republicans (none by anti-equality GOP President George W. Bush), and two others made by jurists not appointed directly by the White House.
On the whole, recent Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have done a good job nominating justices who believe in equality for all Americans (far better than their conservative alternatives), but President Obama’s recent nomination of Michael Boggs to the district court reminds us that we have to stay alert. We have to hold our elected officials accountable on their nominations or their nomination votes.
If we want to safeguard progress on the issue of equality, we must summon a vigilance regarding judicial appointments. We absolutely cannot take it for granted that all judges across the country now agree on this issue. They don’t. Over the last month jurists in Louisiana and Tennessee upheld those state’s gay marriage ban. There are plenty of justices out there dissenting to these rulings, and plenty more that would love an opportunity to stand against civil rights. We have to make sure no more of these jurists get anywhere close to a commission.
We have made incredible progress on this issue -- and we have every reason to be encouraged -- but the balance of power may still lay within the courtroom, and we cannot forget all the politics that go into that.