On June 26, the U.S. Supreme Court released its opinion in Hollingsworth v Perry, the California case over same-sex marriage. The entire discussion in this opinion is whether initiative proponents have standing to defend their initiative, if it passed and then a U.S. District Court struck it down. The majority says that if an initiative is thrown out by a U.S. District Court, and then state officials decide not to appeal, the initiative proponents can’t appeal.

The vote was 5-4. The four Justices who wanted to uphold the ability of initiative proponents to go to a U.S. Court of Appeals to defend their initiative were Justices Kennedy, Alito, Sotomayor, and Thomas. Justice Kennedy, writing for the four of them, said, “A prime purpose of justiciability is to ensure vigorous advocacy, yet the Court insists upon litigation conducted by state officials whose preference is to lose the case.”