1986—What do actual citizens think of liberal judicial activists? By large margins, the people of California unseat state chief justice Rose Bird (66% no) and justices Cruz Reynoso (60% no) and Joseph Grodin (57% no). All three justices had been appointed by Jerry (“Moonbeam”) Brown, California’s governor from 1975 to 1983. Bird had voted to overturn death sentences in all 61 capital cases that had come before her, and all three were widely regarded as activists who imposed their own liberal policy preferences, particularly on crime and business issues.
2008—In reaction against the California supreme court’s May 2008 decision inventing a state constitutional right to same-sex marriage, California voters adopt Proposition 8, which adds to the state constitution a provision expressly declaring that “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”
But Proposition 8 will itself soon become the victim of egregious acts of liberal judicial activism.
2016—In defiance of governing Third Circuit precedent holding that Title VII’s bar on sex discrimination in employment does not encompass a bar on sexual-orientation discrimination, federal district judge Cathy Bissoon (in EEOC v. Scott Medical Health Center) denies an employer’s motion to dismiss the EEOC’s claim of sexual-orientation discrimination under Title VII.