Good on Nancy!

This court case only dealt with the DC Human Rights Act and the decision by the city that the proposed referendum would violate that Act and was therefore not allowed under District law. The exact same thing happened when the Council passed the law recognizing out-of-state marriages last Spring.

Congress can still act in the next 30 legislative days (weekends and other days when Congress is in recess don’t count), and that period is expected to end around March 2. For Congress to act, however, either to overturn the Council’s decision or force a referendum, requires both the House and the Senate to pass legislation AND for Obama to sign it. Speaker Pelosi has indicated she will not allow any such legislation to proceed in the House, so Congressional action is not expected.

The District asserts that Petitioners may not challenge the IPA’s incorporation of the Human Rights Act into the CAA because they did not exhaust their administrative remedies by
raising this issue before the Board. The District’s argument fails for two reasons. First, exhaustion was not required because the appropriate forum for adjudicating the validity of the Human Rights Provision is the court, not the Board (emphasis mine)

I wonder if this could be successfully used in the future, given the fact that we’ve been saying all along that the courts are the place to vent inequalities in the application of the law, specially when it refers to human rights, and not the ballot box.

Anyone heard from Debbie Thurman?