News

The great daily (or nearly daily) newspaper war has ended with a victory for the Times-Standard. The Eureka Reporter announced today that it will cease to exist after this Saturday, November 8. The announcement evidently came as a surprise to most everyone, including the staffs of both papers. Dean Singleton, CEO of Media News, the Denver-based company that owns the Times-Standard, dropped by the T-S newsroom in person to make the announcement to the victors, who say they're feeling more shock than glee.

"It's the end of an era," said Times-Standard City Editor James Faulk, whose magnanimous tone recalled last night's Obama speech. "They brought a lot to this community. We're just trying to figure out our bearings now. You know, if anything, we're putting more pressure on ourselves because we need to represent the viewpoint that they provided to this community," Faulk said. "It's a loss."

Singleton echoed these sentiments in the T-S, saying, "It's satisfying to prevail in battle but, as one who loves newspapers, it's sad to see one go away."

In a strange consolation prize, the E-R will continue to offer opinion pages twice a week, to be published in the Times-Standard. Yes, IN the Times-Standard. The E-R's announcement did not list a reason for the closure beyond the difficult times for the newspaper industry at large. A call to owner Rob Arkley was not immediately returned Wednesday evening.

The future of a lawsuit in which the T-S is suing the E-R for unfair business practices is unknown.

The E-R's printing operations, which print The North Coast Journal, will remain operational.

UPDATE: The suit has been dropped, according to Thursday's T-S. Clearly some behind-closed-doors deal was struck.

But enters into some kind of weird JOA with the T-S?

Quoth the Dean:

"It's satisfying to prevail in battle but, as one who loves newspapers, it's sad to see one go away, but I'm glad the Reporter's spirit will live on in the pages of the Times-Standard," Singleton said.

UPDATE: The deal is for the T-S to publish the Reporter's op-ed pages twice a week. The newsroom, apparently, is gone.

And "deal" is the right word, it seems. Singleton was in town today.

Opponents of Proposition 8, the ballot measure titled "Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry," have not yet conceded defeat. They're holding out hope that absentee and provisional ballots still uncounted might make up for the fact that "Yes" votes currently outnumber "No"s by around 500,000. In the meantime, No on 8 groups have already stated legal maneuvers to invalidate the measure. The Yes side is hitting back. A pair of press releases lays out the dueling positions.

There's this from the ACLU:

Legal Papers Claim Initiative Procedure Cannot Be Used To Undermine the Constitution's Core Commitment To Equality For Everyone

SAN FRANCISCO – The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court today urging the court to invalidate Proposition 8 if it passes. The petition charges that Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution's core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities. According to the California Constitution, such radical changes to the organizing principles of state government cannot be made by simple majority vote through the initiative process, but instead must, at a minimum, go through the state legislature first.

The California Constitution itself sets out two ways to alter the document that sets the most basic rules about how state government works. Through the initiative process, voters can make relatively small changes to the constitution. But any measure that would change the underlying principles of the constitution must first be approved by the legislature before being submitted to the voters. That didn't happen with Proposition 8, and that's why it's invalid.

"If the voters approved an initiative that took the right to free speech away from women, but not from men, everyone would agree that such a measure conflicts with the basic ideals of equality enshrined in our constitution. Proposition 8 suffers from the same flaw – it removes a protected constitutional right – here, the right to marry – not from all Californians, but just from one group of us," said Jenny Pizer, a staff attorney with Lambda Legal. "That's too big a change in the principles of our constitution to be made just by a bare majority of voters."

"A major purpose of the constitution is to protect minorities from majorities. Because changing that principle is a fundamental change to the organizing principles of the constitution itself, only the legislature can initiate such revisions to the constitution," added Elizabeth Gill, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California.

The groups filed the lawsuit today in the California Supreme Court on behalf of Equality California and 6 same-sex couples who did not marry before Tuesday's election but would like to be able to marry now.

The groups filed a writ petition in the California Supreme Court before the elections presenting similar arguments because they believed the initiative should not have appeared on the ballot, but the court dismissed that petition without addressing its merits. That earlier order is not precedent here.

"Historically, courts are reluctant to get involved in disputes if they can avoid doing so," said Shannon Minter, Legal Director of NCLR. "It is not uncommon for the court to wait to see what happens at the polls before considering these legal arguments. However, now that Proposition 8 may pass, the courts will have to weigh in and we believe they will agree that Proposition 8 should never have been on the ballot in the first place."

This would not be the first time the court has struck down an improper voter initiative. In 1990, the court stuck down an initiative that would have added a provision to the California Constitution stating that the "Constitution shall not be construed by the courts to afford greater rights to criminal defendants than those afforded by the Constitution of the United States." That measure was invalid because it improperly attempted to strip California's courts of their role as independent interpreters of the state's constitution.

In a statement issued earlier today, the groups stated their conviction, which is shared by the California Attorney General, that the state must continue to honor the marriages of the 18,000 lesbian and gay couples who have already married in California.

A copy of the statement is available at: www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/37701prs20081105.html.

A copy of the writ petition filed today is available at: www.aclu.org/lgbt/relationships/37709lgl20081105.html.

In addition to the ACLU, Lambda Legal and NCLR, the legal team bringing the writ also includes the Law Office of David C. Codell; Munger Tolles & Olson, LLP; and Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, LLP.

"The lawsuit filed today by the ACLU and Equality California seeking to invalidate the decision of California voters to enshrine traditional marriage in California’s constitution is frivolous and regrettable. These same groups filed an identical case with the California Supreme Court months ago, which was summarily dismissed. We will vigorously defend the People’s decision to enact Proposition 8.

This is the second time that California voters have acted to define marriage as between a man and a woman. It is time that the opponents of traditional marriage respect the voters’ decision.

The ACLU/Equality California lawsuit is completely lacking in merit. It is as if their campaign just spent $40 million on a losing campaign opposing something they now say is a legal nullity. Their position is absurd, an insult to California voters and an attack on the initiative process itself.

The right to amend California’s Constitution is not granted to the People, it is reserved by the People. The Supreme Court has repeatedly acknowledged the reserved power of the People to use the initiative process to amend the Constitution. For example, when the Rose Bird Court struck down the death penalty as a violation of fundamental state constitutional rights, the People disagreed, and in the exercise of their sovereign power reversed that interpretation of their Constitution through the initiative-amendment process. Even a liberal jurist who vehemently disagreed with the People’s decision on the death penalty, Justice Stanley Mosk, nevertheless acknowledged the People’s authority to decide the issue through the initiative-amendment process.

It should also be noted that the ACLU recently made this same "constitutional revision" claim in a nearly identical matter in Oregon and it was unanimously rejected. The claim was made under almost identical provisions of the Oregon State Constitution, against an almost identical voter constitutional amendment which read, "…only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage." The Court of Appeals of Oregon unanimously rejected the ACLU’s "revision" claim. (Martinez v. Kulongoski (May 21, 2008)  --- P.3d----, 220 Or.App. 142, 2008 WL2120516).

The coalition that has worked so hard for the past year to enact Proposition 8 will vigorously defend the People’s decision against this unfortunate challenge by groups who, having lost in the court of public opinion, now turn to courts of law to pursue their agenda."

Obama giving historic Election Night speech

While watching Obama's big moment last night at home with friends and family, I was getting irritated by the scrolling tickertape of state-by-state results and other business at the bottom of the screen on CNN, so I changed the channel to 13, hoping for something cleaner from PBS. To my surprise, the speech wasn't on. My wife was screaming to get back to O, so I didn't linger long enough to see what was on, but I wondered who'd made the decision not to show this historic moment. Apparently I was not the only one who wondered this. KEET-TV just sent us this explanation:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

KEET-TV APOLOGIZES FOR THE INTERRUPTION OF ELECTION COVERAGE

KEET-TV apologizes for the interruption of election coverage on November 4, 2008.  The local PBS station broadcast live election coverage from 6:00 to 9:00 p.m, but the coverage was cut off before President-elect Barack Obama delivered his acceptance speech shortly after 9:00 p.m. PST.  PBS stations across the country were offered a satellite feed of election coverage from the Newshour With Jim Lehrer from 9:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. EST (6:00 to 9:00 p.m. PST).  The satellite feed was scheduled for broadcast on KEET-TV from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. on November 4, and the station was switched over to its usual after-hours automation system at 6:00 p.m. The station was not notified that the Newshour coverage may extend beyond 9:00 p.m., until 8:32 p.m. PST.  Unfortunately, there are no staff members at the station after 6:00 p.m.  Therefore, the automation system switched from the Newshour election coverage to scheduled programming.  KEET management admits to an error in judgment regarding the possibility that election coverage may be available after 9:00 p.m.

KEET-TV Program Director Karen Barnes states, "We truly regret this failure to anticipate the extension of election coverage availability, especially at such an historic moment in our nation’s history.  We are aware that many television viewers rely on KEET-TV for information and we do take that responsibility very seriously. However, we understand that for many last night, we did not fulfill that responsibility and we are deeply sorry."  In response to this issue, Barnes has instated a new station policy that all live broadcasts be monitored by a master control operator or other station staff.
By the way, in case you missed it, here's a link to the speech.