Title: Lockyer v. San Francisco
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: S122923
State: California
Issuer: California Supreme Court
Date: August 12, 2004

1
Filed 8/12/04  
 
 
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 
BILL LOCKYER, as Attorney General, etc., 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Petitioner, 
) 
 
 
) 
S122923 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
CITY AND COUNTY OF 
) 
SAN FRANCISCO et al., 
) 
 
) 
 
Respondents. 
) 
___________________________________ ) 
 
) 
BARBARA LEWIS et al., 
) 
 
 
) 
 
Petitioners, 
) 
 
 
) 
S122865 
 
v. 
) 
 
 
) 
NANCY ALFARO, as County Clerk, etc., ) 
 
 
) 
 
Respondent. 
) 
___________________________________ ) 
 
 
We assumed jurisdiction in these original writ proceedings to address an 
important but relatively narrow legal issue — whether a local executive official 
who is charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a state statute exceeds his or 
her authority when, without any court having determined that the statute is 
unconstitutional, the official deliberately declines to enforce the statute because he 
or she determines or is of the opinion that the statute is unconstitutional. 
 
 
2
In the present case, this legal issue arises out of the refusal of local officials 
in the City and County of San Francisco to enforce the provisions of California’s 
marriage statutes that limit the granting of a marriage license and marriage 
certificate only to a couple comprised of a man and a woman.   
The same legal issue and the same applicable legal principles could come 
into play, however, in a multitude of situations.  For example, we would face the 
same legal issue if the statute in question were among those that restrict the 
possession or require the registration of assault weapons, and a local official, 
charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing those statutes, refused to apply their 
provisions because of the official’s view that they violate the Second Amendment 
of the federal Constitution.  In like manner, the same legal issue would be 
presented if the statute were one of the environmental measures that impose 
restrictions upon a property owner’s ability to obtain a building permit for a 
development that interferes with the public’s access to the California coastline, 
and a local official, charged with the ministerial duty of issuing building permits, 
refused to apply the statutory limitations because of his or her belief that they 
effect an uncompensated “taking” of property in violation of the just compensation 
clause of the state or federal Constitution.   
Indeed, another example might illustrate the point even more clearly:  the 
same legal issue would arise if the statute at the center of the controversy were the 
recently enacted provision (operative January 1, 2005) that imposes a ministerial 
duty upon local officials to accord the same rights and benefits to registered 
domestic partners as are granted to spouses (see Fam. Code, § 297.5, added by 
Stats. 2003, ch. 421, § 4)), and a local official — perhaps an officeholder in a 
locale where domestic partnership rights are unpopular — adopted a policy of 
refusing to recognize or accord to registered domestic partners the equal treatment 
mandated by statute, based solely upon the official’s view (unsupported by any 
 
 
3
judicial determination) that the statutory provisions granting such rights to 
registered domestic partners are unconstitutional because they improperly amend 
or repeal the provisions of the voter-enacted initiative measure commonly known 
as Proposition 22, the California Defense of Marriage Act (Fam. Code, § 308.5) 
without a confirming vote of the electorate, in violation of article II, section 10, 
subdivision (c) of the California Constitution. 
As these various examples demonstrate, although the present proceeding 
may be viewed by some as presenting primarily a question of the substantive legal 
rights of same-sex couples, in actuality the legal issue before us implicates the 
interest of all individuals in ensuring that public officials execute their official 
duties in a manner that respects the limits of the authority granted to them as 
officeholders.  In short, the legal question at issue — the scope of the authority 
entrusted to our public officials — involves the determination of a fundamental 
question that lies at the heart of our political system:  the role of the rule of law in 
a society that justly prides itself on being “a government of laws, and not of men” 
(or women).1 
As indicated above, that issue ― phrased in the narrow terms presented by 
this case ― is whether a local executive official, charged with the ministerial duty 
                                             
 
1 
The phrase “a government of laws, and not of men” was authored by John 
Adams (Adams, Novanglus Papers, No. 7 (1774), reprinted in 4 Works of John 
Adams (Charles Francis Adams ed. 1851) p. 106), and was included as part of the 
separation of powers provision of the initial Massachusetts Constitution adopted in 
1780.  (Mass. Const. (1780) Part The First, art. XXX.)  The separation of powers 
provision of that state’s Constitution remains unchanged to this day, and reads in 
full:  “In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall 
never exercise the executive and judicial powers or either of them; the executive 
shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the 
judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of 
them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”  (Italics added.) 
 
 
4
of enforcing a statute, has the authority to disregard the terms of the statute in the 
absence of a judicial determination that it is unconstitutional, based solely upon 
the official’s opinion that the governing statute is unconstitutional.  As we shall 
see, it is well established, both in California and elsewhere, that  subject to a 
few narrow exceptions that clearly are inapplicable here  a local executive 
official does not possess such authority. 
This conclusion is consistent with the classic understanding of the 
separation of powers doctrine — that the legislative power is the power to enact 
statutes, the executive power is the power to execute or enforce statutes, and the 
judicial power is the power to interpret statutes and to determine their 
constitutionality.  It is true, of course, that the separation of powers doctrine does 
not create an absolute or rigid division of functions.  (Superior Court v. County of 
Mendocino (1996) 13 Cal.4th 45, 52.)  Furthermore, legislators and executive 
officials may take into account constitutional considerations in making 
discretionary decisions within their authorized sphere of action — such as whether 
to enact or veto proposed legislation or exercise prosecutorial discretion.  When, 
however, a duly enacted statute imposes a ministerial duty upon an executive 
official to follow the dictates of the statute in performing a mandated act, the 
official generally has no authority to disregard the statutory mandate based on the 
official’s own determination that the statute is unconstitutional.  (See, e.g., Kendall 
v. United States (1838) 37 U.S. 522, 613 [“To contend that the obligation imposed 
on the president to see the laws faithfully executed implies a power to forbid their 
execution is a novel construction of the constitution, and entirely inadmissible.”].) 
Accordingly, for the reasons that follow, we agree with petitioners that 
local officials in San Francisco exceeded their authority by taking official action in 
violation of applicable statutory provisions.  We therefore shall issue a writ of 
mandate directing the officials to enforce those provisions unless and until they are 
 
 
5
judicially determined to be unconstitutional and to take all necessary remedial 
steps to undo the continuing effects of the officials’ past unauthorized actions, 
including making appropriate corrections to all relevant official records and  
notifying all affected same-sex couples that the same-sex marriages authorized by 
the officials are void and of no legal effect.   
To avoid any misunderstanding, we emphasize that the substantive question 
of the constitutional validity of California’s statutory provisions limiting marriage 
to a union between a man and a woman is not before our court in this proceeding, 
and our decision in this case is not intended, and should not be interpreted, to 
reflect any view on that issue.  We hold only that in the absence of a judicial 
determination that such statutory provisions are unconstitutional, local executive 
officials lacked authority to issue marriage licenses to, solemnize marriages of, or 
register certificates of marriage for same-sex couples, and marriages conducted 
between same-sex couples in violation of the applicable statutes are void and of no 
legal effect.  Should the applicable statutes be judicially determined to be 
unconstitutional in the future, same-sex couples then would be free to obtain valid 
marriage licenses and enter into valid marriages.   
I 
The events that gave rise to this proceeding began on February 10, 2004, 
when Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco and a 
respondent in one of the consolidated cases before us,2 sent a letter to Nancy 
                                             
 
2  
Petitioner in the Lockyer matter is Bill Lockyer, the Attorney General of 
California.  The petition in Lockyer names as respondents the City and County of 
San Francisco, Gavin Newsom in his official capacity as Mayor of the City and 
County of San Francisco, Mabel S. Teng in her official capacity as Assessor-
Recorder of the City and County of San Francisco, and Nancy Alfaro in her 
official capacity as the County Clerk of the City and County of San Francisco.   
 
Petitioners in the Lewis matter are Barbara Lewis, Charles McIlhenny, and 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
6
Alfaro, identified in the letter as the San Francisco County Clerk,3 requesting that 
she “determine what changes should be made to the forms and documents used to 
apply for and issue marriage licenses in order to provide marriage licenses on a 
non-discriminatory basis, without regard to gender or sexual orientation.”  The 
mayor stated in his letter that “[t]he Supreme Courts in other states have held that 
equal protection provisions in their state constitutions prohibit discrimination 
against gay men and lesbians with respect to the rights and obligations flowing 
from marriage,” and explained that it is his “belief that these decisions are 
persuasive and that the California Constitution similarly prohibits such 
discrimination.”  The mayor indicated that the request to the county clerk was 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
Edward Mei, San Francisco residents and taxpayers.  The petition in Lewis names 
as respondent Nancy Alfaro in her official capacity as the County Clerk of the City 
and County of San Francisco. 
 
For convenience, in this opinion we generally shall refer to the Attorney 
General and petitioners in Lewis collectively as “petitioners” and to respondents in 
both Lockyer and Lewis collectively as “the city” or “the city officials.”  
3  
The letter from Mayor Newsom identified Alfaro as the San Francisco 
County Clerk.  In its answer to the petition for writ of mandate in Lockyer, filed in 
this court on March 18, 2004, however, the city alleges “that Daryl M. Burton is 
the San Francisco County Clerk, and that Nancy Alfaro is the Director of the 
County Clerk’s Office, to whom all of the responsibilities and privileges of 
County Clerk have been delegated.”  The answer further alleges that “as Burton’s 
delegate, Nancy Alfaro is the designated ‘commissioner of civil marriages’ for San 
Francisco.”  Alfaro has filed a declaration stating that she is the Director of the 
County Clerk’s Office for the City and County of San Francisco and that “[i]n that 
capacity I perform all the duties, and hold all the responsibilities of, the County 
Clerk.  These duties include the issuance of all marriage licenses.”  Petitioners do 
not contend that Alfaro is not the official authorized to perform the duties assigned 
by the applicable statutes to the county clerk, and thus we shall consider Alfaro the 
county clerk for purposes of this proceeding.   
 
 
7
made “[p]ursuant to [his] sworn duty to uphold the California Constitution, 
including specifically its equal protection clause . . . .”4 
In response to the mayor’s letter, the county clerk designed what she 
describes as “a gender-neutral application for public marriage licenses, and a 
gender-neutral marriage license,” to be used by same-sex couples.  The newly 
designed form altered the official state-prescribed form for the “Application for 
Marriage License” and the “License and Certificate of Marriage” by eliminating 
the terms “bride,” “groom,” and “unmarried man and unmarried woman,” and by 
replacing them with the terms “first applicant,” “second applicant,” and 
“unmarried individuals.”  The revised form also contained a new warning at the 
top of the form, advising applicants that “[b]y entering into marriage you may lose 
some or all of the rights, protections and benefits you enjoy as a domestic partner” 
                                             
 
4  
The letter read in full:  “Upon taking the Oath of Office, becoming the 
Mayor of the City and County of San Francisco, I swore to uphold the 
Constitution of the State of California.  Article I, Section 7, subdivision (a) of the 
California Constitution provides that ‘[a] person may not be . . . denied equal 
protection of the laws.’  The California courts have interpreted the equal 
protection clause of the California Constitution to apply to lesbians and gay men 
and have suggested that laws that treat homosexuals differently from heterosexuals 
are suspect.  The California courts have also stated that discrimination against gay 
men and lesbians is invidious.  The California courts have held that gender 
discrimination is suspect and invidious as well.  The Supreme Courts in other 
states have held that equal protection provisions in their state constitutions prohibit 
discrimination against gay men and lesbians with respect to the rights and 
obligations flowing from marriage.  It is my belief that these decisions are 
persuasive and that the California Constitution similarly prohibits such 
discrimination. 
 
“Pursuant to my sworn duty to uphold the California Constitution, 
including specifically its equal protection clause, I request that you determine what 
changes should be made to the forms and documents used to apply for and issue 
marriage licenses in order to provide marriage licenses on a non-discriminatory 
basis, without regard to gender or sexual orientation.”   
 
 
8
and that “marriage of gay and lesbian couples may not be recognized as valid by 
any jurisdiction other than San Francisco, and may not be recognized as valid by 
any employer,” and encouraging same-sex couples “to seek legal advice regarding 
the effect of entering into marriage.”5 
The county clerk, using the altered forms, began issuing marriage licenses 
to same-sex couples on February 12, 2004, and the county recorder thereafter 
registered marriage certificates submitted on behalf of same-sex couples who had 
received licenses from the city and had participated in marriage ceremonies.  The 
declaration of the county clerk, filed in this court on March 5, 2004, indicates that 
as of that date, the clerk had issued more that 3,500 marriage licenses to same-sex 
couples.  In more recent filings, the city has indicated that approximately 4,000 
same-sex marriages have been performed under licenses issued by the County 
Clerk of the City and County of San Francisco.   
On February 13, 2004, two separate actions were filed in San Francisco 
County Superior Court seeking to halt the city’s issuance of marriage licenses to 
same-sex couples and the solemnization and registration of marriages of such 
couples.  (Thomasson v. Newsom (Super. Ct. S.F. City and County, 2004, No. 
CGC-04-428794); Proposition 22 Legal Defense and Education Fund v. City and 
                                             
 
5  
The warning reads in full:  “Please read this carefully prior to completing 
the application: [¶]  By entering into marriage you may lose some or all of the 
rights, protections, and benefits you enjoy as a domestic partner, including, but not 
limited to those rights, protections, and benefits afforded by State and local 
government, and by your employer.  If you are currently in a domestic partnership, 
you are urged to seek legal advice regarding the potential loss of your rights, 
protections, and benefits before entering into marriage.  [¶]  Marriage of gay and 
lesbian couples may not be recognized as valid by any jurisdiction other than San 
Francisco, and may not be recognized as valid by any employer.  If you are a 
same-gender couple, you are encouraged to seek legal advice regarding the effect 
of entering into marriage.”   
 
 
9
County of San Francisco (Super. Ct. S.F. City and County, 2004, No. CPF-04-
50943 (hereafter Proposition 22 Legal Defense).)  In each case, a request for an 
immediate stay of the city’s actions was denied by the superior court after a 
hearing.6 
On February 27, 2004, the Attorney General filed in this court a petition for 
an original writ of mandate, prohibition, certiorari, and/or other relief, and a 
request for an immediate stay.  The petition asserted that the actions of the city 
officials in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples and solemnizing and 
registering the marriages of such couples are unlawful, and that the problems and 
uncertainty created by the growing number of these marriages justify intervention 
by this court.  The petition pointed out that despite a directive issued by the state 
Registrar of Vital Statistics, the San Francisco County Recorder had not ceased the 
practice of registering marriage certificates submitted by same-sex couples on 
forms other than those approved by the State of California, and that officials of the 
federal Social Security Administration had raised questions regarding that 
agency’s processing of name-change applications resulting from California 
marriages — not confined to single-sex marriages — because of the uncertainty as 
to whether certain marriage certificates issued in California are valid under state 
law.  Noting that “[t]he Attorney General has the constitutional duty to see that the 
                                             
 
6  
On February 17, 2004, the superior court, in addition to declining to grant 
the request for an immediate stay, issued an alternative writ in Proposition 22 
Legal Defense, directing the city to cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to 
same-sex couples or performing marriage ceremonies for such couples, or show 
cause why the city has not done so, and set a hearing on the show cause order for 
March 29, 2004.  On February 19, 2004, the city filed a cross-complaint for 
declaratory relief against the State of California in Proposition 22 Legal Defense, 
seeking a declaration that the California statutes that deny the issuance of marriage 
licenses to same-sex couples are unconstitutional. 
 
 
10
laws of the state are uniformly and adequately enforced” (see Cal. Const., art. V, 
§ 13), the petition maintained that the existing “conflict and uncertainty, and the 
potential for future ambiguity, instability, and inconsistent administration among 
various jurisdictions and levels of government, present a legal issue of statewide 
importance that warrants immediate intervention by this Court.”  The petition 
requested that this court issue an order (1) directing the local officials to comply 
with the applicable statutes in issuing marriage licenses and certificates, 
(2) declaring invalid the same-sex marriage licenses and certificates that have been 
issued, and (3) directing the city to refund any fees collected in connection with 
such licenses and certificates.   
Anticipating that the respondent city officials likely would oppose the 
petition by arguing that the applicable state laws are unconstitutional, the petition 
maintained that such a claim could not justify the officials’ issuance of same-sex 
marriage licenses in violation of state law “because article III, section 3.5 of the 
California Constitution prohibits administrative agencies from declaring state laws 
unconstitutional in the absence of an appellate court determination.”  The petition 
asserted that “[t]he county is a political subdivision of the state charged with 
administering state government, and local registrars of vital statistics act as state 
officers.  The state’s agents at the local level simply cannot refuse to enforce state 
law.” 
Although the Attorney General’s petition acknowledged that the court 
could grant the relief requested in the petition without reaching the substantive 
question of the constitutionality of the California statutes limiting marriage to a 
man and a woman, the petition urged that we also resolve the substantive 
constitutional issue at this time, arguing that “[a]s the issues presented are pure 
legal issues, and there is no need for the development of a factual record, these 
issues are ready for this Court’s review.” 
 
 
11
On February 25, 2004, two days prior to the filing of the petition in 
Lockyer, the petition in Lewis was filed in this court.  In Lewis, three residents and 
taxpayers in the City and County of San Francisco sought a writ of mandate to 
compel the county clerk to cease and desist issuing marriage licenses to couples 
other than those who meet state law marriage requirements and on forms that do 
not comply with state law license requirements, and also sought an immediate stay 
pending the court’s determination of the petition.   
After receiving the petitions in Lockyer and Lewis, we requested that the 
city file an opposition to the petition in each case on or before March 5, 2004.  The 
city filed its opposition to the petitions on March 5, arguing that the provisions of 
article III, section 3.5 of the California Constitution do not apply to local officials 
and that, in any event, under the supremacy clause of the United States 
Constitution, California Constitution article III, section 3.5 could not properly be 
applied to preclude a local official from refusing to enforce a statute that the 
official believes violates the federal Constitution.  With regard to the question of 
the constitutionality of California’s statutory ban on same-sex marriages, the 
opposition maintained that “the issue is one best left to the lower courts in the first 
instance to undertake the extensive fact-finding that will be necessary.”7 
On March 11, 2004, we issued an order in both Lockyer and Lewis directing 
the city officials to show cause why a writ of mandate should not issue requiring 
the officials to apply and abide by the current California marriage statutes in the 
absence of a judicial determination that the statutory provisions are 
                                             
 
7  
The petition in Lewis — filed by parties who maintain that the existing 
California marriage statutes are constitutional — similarly took the position that 
“[t]he constitutionality of the marriage laws is an issue best left to full 
development in the lower courts.”   
 
 
12
unconstitutional.  Pending our determination of these matters, we directed the 
officials to enforce the existing marriage statutes and refrain from issuing marriage 
licenses or certificates not authorized by such provisions.  We also stayed all 
proceedings in the two pending San Francisco County Superior Court cases (the 
Proposition 22 Legal Defense action and the Thomasson v. Newsom action), but 
specified that the stay “does not preclude the filing of a separate action in superior 
court raising a substantive constitutional challenge to the current marriage 
statutes.” 
Our March 11 order also specified that the return to be filed by the city 
officials in each case was to be limited “to the issue whether respondents are 
exceeding or acting outside the scope of their authority in refusing to enforce the 
provisions of Family Code sections 300, 301, 308.5, and 355 in the absence of a 
judicial determination that such provisions are unconstitutional,” and that in 
addressing this issue, the return “should discuss not only the applicability and 
effect of article III, section 3.5 of the California Constitution” but also any other 
constitutional or statutory provisions or legal doctrines that bear on the question 
whether the city officials acted outside the scope of their authority in refusing to 
comply with the applicable statutes in the absence of a judicial determination that 
the statutes are unconstitutional. 
Our March 11 order further established an expedited briefing schedule and 
indicated that the court would hear oral argument in these matters at its late May 
2004 or June 2004 oral argument calendar.  After receiving the briefs filed by the 
parties and numerous amici curiae, we requested that the parties file supplemental 
letter briefs addressing several questions relating to the validity of the marriage 
licenses and certificates of registry of marriage that already had been issued or 
registered by city officials to or on behalf of same-sex couples.  The supplemental 
briefs were timely filed, and the cases were argued before this court on May 25, 
 
 
13
2004.  After oral argument, we filed an order consolidating the two cases for 
decision.   
II 
It is well settled in California that “the Legislature has full control of the 
subject of marriage and may fix the conditions under which the marital status may 
be created or terminated. . . .”  (McClure v. Donovan (1949) 33 Cal.3d 717, 728.)  
“The regulation of marriage and divorce is solely within the province of the 
Legislature, except as the same may be restricted by the Constitution.”  (Beeler v. 
Beeler (1954) 124 Cal.App.2d 679, 682; see, e.g., Estate of DePasse (2002) 97 
Cal.App.4th 92, 99.)  In view of the primacy of the Legislature’s role in this area, 
we begin by setting forth the relevant statutes relating to marriage that have some 
bearing on the issue before us.  As we shall see, the Legislature has dealt with the 
subject of marriage in considerable detail.  
As applicable to the issues presented by this case, the relevant statutes 
dealing with marriage are contained in the Family Code and the Health and Safety 
Code. 
The provisions regarding the validity of marriage are set forth in Family 
Code sections 300 to 310. 
Section 300 provides in full:  “Marriage is a personal relation arising out 
of a civil contract between a man and a woman, to which the consent of the parties 
capable of making that contract is necessary.  Consent alone does not constitute 
marriage.  Consent must be followed by the issuance of a license and 
solemnization as authorized by this division, except as provided by Section 425[8] 
                                             
 
8  
Family Code section 425 provides:  “If no record of the solemnization of a 
marriage previously contracted is known to exist, the parties may purchase a 
License and Certificate of Declaration of Marriage from the county clerk in the 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
14
and Part 4 (commencing with Section 500).[9]”  (Italics added.) 
Section 301 provides:  “An unmarried male of the age of 18 years or older, 
and an unmarried female of the age of 18 or older, and not otherwise disqualified, 
are capable of consenting to and consummating marriage.”  (Italics added.) 
Section 308.5 provides:  “Only marriage between a man and a woman is 
valid or recognized in California.”  (Italics added.) 
In the opposition filed in this court, the city takes the position that neither 
section 301 nor section 308.5 is relevant to the question whether current California 
statutes limit marriages performed in California to marriages between a man and a 
woman,10 but the city concedes that section 300, both by its terms and its purpose, 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
parties’ county of residence.”  Family Code section 350 provides that “[b]efore . . . 
declaring a marriage pursuant to Section 425, the parties shall first obtain a 
marriage license from a county clerk.”  As the Court of Appeal explained in Estate 
of DePasse, supra, 97 Cal.App.4th 92, 104, “[t]he purpose of the [section 425] 
procedure is to create a record of an otherwise unrecorded marriage, thus focusing 
on the registration requirement, as opposed to the licensing requirement.”  The 
section 425 procedure has no bearing on the issues presented by this case. 
9  
Part 4 of division 3 of the Family Code (§§ 500-536) governs confidential 
marriages.  With respect to the issue presented in this case, the provisions 
governing confidential marriages parallel the provisions governing ordinary 
marriages.  (Compare, e.g., Fam. Code, § 505 [specifying form of confidential 
marriage license] with Fam. Code, § 355 [specifying form of ordinary marriage 
license].) 
10  
With respect to section 301 — which, as noted above, provides that “an 
unmarried male of the age of 18 years or older, and an unmarried female of the 
age of 18 years or older, . . . are capable of consenting to and consummating 
marriage” — the opposition filed in this court maintains that “the statute is silent 
as to whom an unmarried male and an unmarried female may marry, and thus is 
irrelevant.”  Petitioners maintain, by contrast, that section 301 clearly 
contemplates that a marriage will be consummated between an unmarried male 
and unmarried female.   
 
With regard to section 308.5 — which provides that “[o]nly marriage 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
15
imposes such a limitation on marriages performed in California.11  Because we 
agree that section 300 clearly establishes that current California statutory law 
limits marriage to couples comprised of a man and a woman, we need not and do 
not address the scope or effect of sections 301 and 308.5 in this case. 
The Family Code provisions relating to marriage licenses and to the 
certificate of registry of marriage are set forth in Family Code sections 350 to 360.  
These statutes provide that “before entering a marriage, . . . the parties shall first 
obtain a marriage license from a county clerk” (Fam. Code, § 350), and the 
provisions state what information must be contained on the license (Fam. Code, 
§ 351) and place the responsibility on the county clerk to ensure that the statutory 
requirements for obtaining a marriage license are satisfied. (Fam. Code, § 354.)  
The statutes also specifically provide that the forms for (1) the application for a 
marriage license, (2) the marriage license, and (3) the certificate of registry of 
marriage that are to be used by the county clerk and provided to the applicants 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
between a man and woman is valid or recognized in California” — the opposition 
maintains that, in light of the provision’s history, “[t]his statute is irrelevant to the 
case at hand because it addresses only out-of-state marriages.”  Petitioners assert, 
by contrast, that by specifying that only marriage between a man and woman is 
“valid” or “recognized” in California, section 308.5 addresses both in-state and 
out-of-state marriages.   
11  
The language in Family Code section 300 specifying that marriage is a 
relation “between a man and a woman” was adopted by the Legislature in 1977, 
when the provision was set forth in former section 4100 of the Civil Code.  (Stats. 
1977, ch. 339, § 1, p. 1295, introduced as Assem. Bill 607 (1977-1978 Reg. 
Sess.).)  The legislative history of the measure makes its objective clear.  (See Sen. 
Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 607 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess) as 
amended May 23, 1977, p. 1 [“The purpose of the bill is to prohibit persons of the 
same sex from entering lawful marriage.”].)  The provisions of Civil Code former 
section 4100 were moved to Family Code section 300 when the Family Code was 
enacted in 1992.  (Stats. 1992, ch. 162, § 10, p. 474.)   
 
 
16
“shall be prescribed by the State Department of Health Services.”  (Fam. Code, 
§§ 355, 359.)12   
                                             
 
12   
Family Code section 350 provides:  “Before entering a marriage, or 
declaring a marriage pursuant to Section 425, the parties shall first obtain a 
marriage license from a county clerk.”  (Italics added.) 
 
Section 351 provides:  “The marriage license shall show all of the 
following:  [¶] (a) The identity of the parties to the marriage. [¶] (b) The parties’ 
real and full names, and places of residence.  [¶] (c) The parties’ ages.” 
 
Section 354 provides:  “(a) Each applicant for a marriage license may be 
required to present authentic identification as to name.  [¶] (b) For the purpose of 
ascertaining the facts mentioned or required in this part, if the clerk deems it 
necessary, the clerk may examine the applicants for a marriage license on oath at 
the time of the application.  The clerk shall reduce the examination to writing and 
the applicants shall sign it.  [¶] (c)  If necessary, the clerk may request additional 
documentary proof as to the accuracy of the facts stated.  [¶] (d) Applicants for a 
marriage license shall not be required to state, for any purpose, their race or 
color.”  (Italics added.) 
 
Section 355 provides: “(a) The forms for the application for a marriage 
license and the marriage license shall be prescribed by the State Department of 
Health Services, and shall be adapted to set forth the facts required in this part.  
[¶]  (b) The form for the application for a marriage license shall include an 
affidavit on the back, which the applicants shall sign, affirming that they have 
received the brochure provided for in Section 358. [¶]  (c)  The affidavit required 
by subdivision (b) shall state: 
 
 
 
 
 
AFFIDAVIT 
 
I acknowledge that I have received the brochure titled _________________ 
                _________________                                                 __________ 
                 Signature of Bride                                                           Date 
                __________________                                              ___________ 
                 Signature of Groom                                                         Date 
[End of section 355.]” (Italics added.) 
 
Section 359 provides:  “(a) Applicants for a marriage license shall obtain 
from the county clerk issuing the license, a certificate of registry of marriage.  [¶] 
(b) The contents of the certificate of registry are as provided in Division 9 
(commencing with Section 10000) of the Health and Safety Code.  [¶]  (c) The 
certificate of registry shall be filled out by the applicants, in the presence of the 
county clerk issuing the marriage license, and shall be presented to the person 
solemnizing the marriage.  [¶]  (d) The person solemnizing the marriage shall 
complete the registry and shall cause to be entered on the certificate of registry the 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
17
Provisions regarding the solemnization of marriage are set forth in Family 
Code sections 400 to 425.  These statutes contain a list of the numerous persons 
who may solemnize a marriage under California law (Fam. Code, § 400), and 
require the person solemnizing a marriage (1) to require the applicants to present 
the marriage license to him or her prior to solemnization (Fam. Code, § 421), 
(2) to sign and endorse upon or attach to the marriage license a statement, “in the 
form prescribed by the State Department of Health Services,” setting forth 
specified information (Fam. Code, § 422), and (3) to return the marriage license, 
with the requisite endorsement, to the county recorder of the county in which the 
license was issued within 30 days after the marriage ceremony.  (Fam. Code, 
§ 423.)13 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
signature and address of one witness to the marriage ceremony.  [¶]  (e) The 
certificate of registry shall be returned by the person solemnizing the marriage to 
the county recorder of the county in which the license was issued within 30 days 
after the ceremony. [¶]  (f) As used in this division, ‘returned’ means presented to 
the appropriate person in person, or postmarked, before the expiration of the 
specified time period.”  (Italics added.) 
13   
Family Code section 421 provides in relevant part:  “Before solemnizing a 
marriage, the person solemnizing the marriage shall require the presentation of the 
marriage license. . . .” 
 
Section 422 provides in relevant part:  “The person solemnizing a marriage 
shall make, sign, and endorse upon or attach to the marriage license a statement, in 
the form prescribed by the State Department of Health Services, showing all of the 
following: [¶] (a) The fact, date (month, day, year), and place (city and county) of 
solemnization. [¶] (b) The names and places of residence of one or more witnesses 
to the ceremony. [¶] (c) The official position of the person solemnizing the 
marriage . . . .”  (Italics added.) 
 
Section 423 provides:  “The person solemnizing the marriage shall return 
the marriage license, endorsed as required in Section 422, to the county recorder 
of the county in which the license was issued within 30 days after the ceremony.”  
(Italics added.) 
 
 
18
The Health and Safety Code contains numerous additional provisions 
prescribing in detail the procedures governing marriage licenses and marriage 
certificates as part of the state’s registration and maintenance of vital statistics.  
These statutes designate the California Director of Health Services as the State 
Registrar of Vital Statistics (Health & Saf. Code, § 102175) and provide that 
“[e]ach live birth, fetal death, death, and marriage that occurs in this state shall be 
registered as provided in this part on the prescribed certificate forms . . . .”  
(Health & Saf. Code, § 102100, italics added.)  The statutes also specify that “[t]he 
State Registrar is charged with the execution of this part in this state, and has 
supervisory power over local registrars, so that there shall be uniform compliance 
with all the requirements of this part” (Health & Saf. Code, § 102180, italics 
added), that “[t]he Attorney General will assist in the enforcement of this part 
upon request of the State Registrar” (Health & Saf. Code, § 102195), and that 
“[t]he State Registrar shall prescribe and furnish all record forms for use in 
carrying out the purpose of this part, . . . and no record forms or formats other 
than those prescribed shall be used.”  (Health & Saf. Code, § 102200, italics 
added.)14  The code also contains a specific provision pertaining to all of the 
official forms related to marriage, which expressly provides that “[t]he forms for 
the application for license to marry, the certificate of registry of marriage 
including the license to marry, and the marriage certificate shall be prescribed by 
the State Registrar.” (Health & Saf. Code, § 103125, italics added.) 
The relevant Health and Safety Code statutes also specify that “[t]he county 
recorder is the local registrar of marriages and shall perform all the duties of the 
                                             
 
14  
The Health and Safety Code contains a number of additional provisions that 
demonstrate the state’s overriding interest in the uniform application of the state’s 
marriage laws.  (See, e.g., Health & Saf. Code, §§ 102205, 102215.) 
 
 
19
local registrar of marriages” (Health & Saf. Code, § 102285), and that “[e]ach 
local registrar is hereby charged with the enforcement of this part in his or her 
registration district under the supervision and direction of the State Registrar and 
shall make an immediate report to the State Registrar of any violation of this law 
coming to his or her knowledge.”  (Health & Saf. Code, § 102295, italics added.)  
The statutes also provide that “[t]he local registrar of marriages shall carefully 
examine each certificate before acceptance for registration and, if it is incomplete 
or unsatisfactory, he or she shall require any further information to be furnished as 
may be necessary to make the record satisfactory before acceptance for 
registration.” (Health & Saf. Code, § 102310.) 
Pursuant to the foregoing provisions, the State Registrar of Vital Statistics 
(who, as noted, is also the California Director of Health Services) has prescribed a 
form ― Department of Health Services Form VS-117 ― which serves as the 
application for license to marry, the license to marry, and the certificate of registry 
of marriage.  One of the principal California family law practice guides describes 
the relevant portions of the form as follows:  “The first three sections of the form 
(Groom Personal Data, Bride Personal Data, and Affidavit) constitute the 
application for license to marry.  The personal data sections are filled out by the 
court clerk, using information and/or documents provided by the applicants.  The 
bride and groom must both sign the application (see lines 23 [entitled Signature of 
Groom], 24 [entitled Signature of Bride]) after the personal data sections have 
been completed.  The fourth section of the form (lines 25A-25F) constitutes the 
license to marry.  This section is to be completed by the clerk.”  (1 Kirkland et al., 
Cal. Family Law: Practices and Procedure (2d ed. 2003) Validity of Marriage, 
Forms, § 10.100[1], p. 10-80.)   
The city acknowledges that the county clerk altered the form prescribed by 
the State Registrar of Vital Statistics by replacing references to “bride,” “groom,” 
 
 
20
and “unmarried man and unmarried woman” with references to “first applicant,” 
“second applicant,” and “unmarried individuals,” that the county clerk further 
issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and that the county recorder 
registered certificates of registry of marriage for such couples, despite the 
knowledge of these officials that the current California statutes do not authorize 
such actions.  The city defends the actions of these officials on the ground that 
they were based on the belief that the statutory restriction in California law 
limiting marriage to a man and a woman is unconstitutional.  The principal 
question before us is whether the local officials exceeded or acted outside of their 
authority in taking these actions. 
III 
In light of several questions raised by the briefs filed by the city in this 
court, we begin with a brief discussion of the respective roles of state and local 
officials with regard to the enforcement of the marriage statutes (in particular, the 
issuance of marriage licenses and the registering of marriage certificates), and of 
the nature of the duties of local officials under the applicable statutes. 
A 
As is demonstrated by the above review of the relevant statutory provisions, 
the Legislature has enacted a comprehensive scheme regulating marriage in 
California, establishing the substantive standards for eligibility for marriage and 
setting forth in detail the procedures to be followed and the public officials who 
are entrusted with carrying out these procedures.  In light of both the historical 
understanding reflected in this statutory scheme and the statutes’ repeated 
emphasis on the importance of having uniform rules and procedures apply 
throughout the state to the subject of marriage, there can be no question but that 
marriage is a matter of “statewide concern” rather than a “municipal affair” (see 
Cal. Const. art. XI, §§ 4, 5, 6; see, e.g., California Fed. Savings & Loan Assn. v. 
 
 
21
City of Los Angeles (1991) 54 Cal.3d 1, 17), and that state statutes dealing with 
marriage prevail over any conflicting local charter provision, ordinance, or 
practice. 
Furthermore, the relevant statutes also reveal that the only local officials to 
whom the state has granted authority to act with regard to marriage licenses and 
marriage certificates are the county clerk and the county recorder.  The statutes do 
not authorize the mayor of a city (or city and county, as is San Francisco) or any 
other comparable local official to take any action with regard to the process of 
issuing marriage licenses or registering marriage certificates.  Although a mayor 
may have authority under a local charter to supervise and control the actions of a 
county clerk or county recorder with regard to other subjects, a mayor has no 
authority to expand or vary the authority of a county clerk or county recorder to 
grant marriage licenses or register marriage certificates under the governing state 
statutes, or to direct those officials to act in contravention of those statutes.  (See, 
e.g., Coulter v. Pool (1921) 187 Cal. 181, 187 [“A public officer is a public agent 
and as such acts only on behalf of his principal . . . .  The most general 
characteristic of a public officer . . . is that a public duty is delegated and entrusted 
to him, as agent, the performance of which is an exercise of a part of the 
governmental functions of the particular political unit for which he, as agent, is 
acting.” (Italics added.)]; Sacramento v. Simmons (1924) 66 Cal.App. 18, 24-25 
[when state statute designated local health officers as local registrars of vital 
statistics, “to the extent [such officials] are discharging such duties they are acting 
as state officers.  They are state officers performing state functions and are under 
the exclusive jurisdiction of the state registrar of vital statistics” (italics added)]; 
Boss v. Lewis (1917) 33 Cal.App. 792, 794 [city clerk, when acting as local 
registrar of vital statistics under state law, is state officer].) 
 
 
22
Accordingly, to the extent the mayor purported to “direct” or “instruct” the 
county clerk and the county recorder to take specific actions with regard to the 
issuance of marriage licenses or the registering of marriage certificates, we 
conclude he exceeded the scope of his authority. (See, e.g., Sacramento v. 
Simmons, supra, 66 Cal.App.18, 24-28.)15  Furthermore, if the county clerk or the 
county recorder acted in this case in contravention of the applicable statutes solely 
at the behest of the mayor and not on the basis of the official’s own determination 
that the statutes are unconstitutional, such official also would appear to have acted 
improperly by abdicating the statutory responsibility imposed directly on him or 
her as a state officer.  (See, e.g., California Radioactive Materials Management 
Forum v. Department of Health Services (1993) 15 Cal.App.4th 841, 874, 
disapproved on another point in Carmel Valley Fire Protection Dist. v. State of 
California (2001) 25 Cal.4th 287, 305, fn. 5 [“An executive or administrative 
officer can no more abdicate responsibility for executing the laws than the 
Legislature can be permitted to usurp it.”].) 
Although it is not clear that the county clerk and the county recorder acted 
on the basis of each individual official’s own opinion or determination as to the 
unconstitutionality of the applicable statutes (see fn. 15, ante), and the actions of 
these officials might be vulnerable to challenge on that ground alone, it is 
                                             
 
15  
In the mayor’s February 10 letter to the county clerk, the mayor simply 
“request[ed]” the clerk to determine what changes should be made to the forms 
and documents used to apply for and issue marriage licenses.  In the opposition 
and supplemental opposition filed in this court, however, the city states that the 
mayor “directed the County Clerk’s Office to arrange for the issuance of marriage 
licenses to same-sex couples” and that “Alfaro was not the decisionmaker with 
respect to San Francisco’s issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  She 
and the other employees within the County Clerk’s Office issued marriage licenses 
to such couples because Mayor Newsom told them to do so.”   
 
 
23
nonetheless appropriate in this case to address the question whether a public 
official may refuse to enforce a statute when he or she determines the statute to be 
unconstitutional.  The city maintains that when, as here, a public official has 
asserted in a mandate proceeding that a statutory provision that the official has 
refused to enforce is unconstitutional, a court may not issue a writ of mandate to 
compel the official to perform a ministerial duty prescribed by the statute unless 
the court first determines that the statute is constitutional.  If, however, the 
controlling rule of law requires such an official to carry out a ministerial duty 
dictated by statute unless and until the statute has been judicially determined to be 
unconstitutional, it follows that such an official cannot compel a court to rule on 
the constitutional issue by refusing to apply the statute and that a writ of mandate 
properly may issue, without a judicial determination of the statute’s 
constitutionality, directing the official to comply with the statute unless and until 
the statute has been judicially determined to be unconstitutional.  Accordingly, in 
deciding whether a writ of mandate should issue, it is appropriate to determine 
whether the city officials were obligated to comply with the ministerial duty 
prescribed by statute without regard to their view of the constitutionality of the 
statute.   
B 
In addition, we believe it is appropriate to clarify at the outset that, under 
the statutes reviewed above, the duties of the county clerk and the county recorder 
at issue in this case properly are characterized as ministerial rather than 
discretionary.  When the substantive and procedural requirements established by 
the state marriage statutes are satisfied, the county clerk and the county recorder 
each has the respective mandatory duty to issue a marriage license and record a 
certificate of registry of marriage; in that circumstance, the officials have no 
discretion to withhold a marriage license or refuse to record a marriage certificate.  
 
 
24
By the same token, when the statutory requirements have not been met, the county 
clerk and the county recorder are not granted any discretion under the statutes to 
issue a marriage license or register a certificate of registry of marriage.  As we 
stated recently in Kavanaugh v. West Sonoma County Union High School Dist. 
(2003) 29 Cal.4th 911, 916:  “ ‘A ministerial act is an act that a public officer is 
required to perform in a prescribed manner in obedience to the mandate of legal 
authority and without regard to his own judgment or opinion concerning such act’s 
propriety or impropriety, when a given state of facts exists.’ ” 
Thus, the issue before us is whether under California law the authority of a 
local executive official, charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a state 
statute, includes the authority to disregard the statutory requirements when the 
official is of the opinion the provision is unconstitutional but there has been no 
judicial determination of unconstitutionality. 
IV 
In the opposition and supplemental opposition filed in this court, the city 
maintains that a local executive official’s general duty and authority to apply the 
law includes the authority to refuse to apply a statute whenever the official 
believes it to be unconstitutional, even in the absence of a judicial determination of 
unconstitutionality and even when the duty prescribed by the statute is ministerial.  
The city asserts that such authority flows from every public official’s duty “to 
conform [his or her] acts to constitutional norms.”  The Attorney General argues, 
by contrast, that it is well established that a duly enacted statute is presumed to be 
constitutional, and he maintains that “the prospect of local governmental officials 
unilaterally defying state laws with which they disagree is untenable and 
inconsistent with the precepts of our legal system.”   
As we shall explain, we conclude that a local public official, charged with 
the ministerial duty of enforcing a statute, generally does not have the authority, in 
 
 
25
the absence of a judicial determination of unconstitutionality, to refuse to enforce 
the statute on the basis of the official’s view that it is unconstitutional.16 
A 
In the initial petitions filed in this matter, petitioners relied primarily on the 
provisions of article III, section 3.5 of the California Constitution (hereafter 
generally referred to as article III, section 3.5) in maintaining that the challenged 
actions of the local officials were improper. 
Article III, section 3.5 provides in full: “An administrative agency, 
including an administrative agency created by the Constitution or an initiative 
statute, has no power: [¶] (a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to 
enforce a statute, on the basis of its being unconstitutional unless an appellate 
court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional.  [¶]  (b) To 
declare a statute unconstitutional.  [¶]  (c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to 
refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations 
prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a 
determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or 
federal regulations.” 
                                             
 
16  
As indicated, the issue presented in this case is purely whether a local 
official may refuse to apply a statute solely on the basis of the official’s view that 
the statute is unconstitutional.  There is no claim here that the officials acted as 
they did because of questions regarding the proper interpretation of the applicable 
statutes or because of doubts as to which of two or more competing statutory 
provisions to apply.  (Cf. Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. Public 
Utilities Commission (2003) 112 Cal.App.4th 881, 887-889.)  Here, the officials 
acknowledge that the current California statutes limit marriage to a union between 
a man and a woman, and concede that they refused to apply the relevant statutory 
provisions solely because of a belief that this statutory requirement is 
unconstitutional.   
 
 
26
Article III, section 3.5 does not define the term “administrative agency” as 
used in this constitutional provision.  Petitioners maintain that in light of the 
purpose of the provision, the term “administrative agency” should be interpreted to 
include local executive officials, particularly local officials who are acting as state 
officers in carrying out a function prescribed by state statute. 
Article III, section 3.5 was proposed by the Legislature and placed before 
the voters as Proposition 5 at the June 6, 1978 election, and was adopted by the 
electorate.  The ballot argument in favor of Proposition 5, contained in the election 
brochure distributed to voters prior to the election, stated in part:  “Every statute is 
enacted only after a long and exhaustive process, involving as many as four open 
legislative committee meetings where members of the public can express their 
views.  If the agencies question the constitutionality of a measure, they can present 
testimony at the public hearing during legislative consideration.  Committee action 
is followed by full consideration by both houses of the Legislature.  [¶]  Before the 
Governor signs or vetoes a bill, he receives analyses from the agencies which will 
be called upon to implement its provisions.  If the Legislature has passed the bill 
over the objections of the agency, the Governor is not likely to ignore valid 
apprehensions of his department, as he is Chief Executive of the State and is 
responsible for most of its administrative functions.  [¶]  Once the law has been 
enacted, however, it does not make sense for an administrative agency to refuse to 
carry out its legal responsibilities because the agency’s members have decided the 
law is invalid.  Yet, administrative agencies are so doing with increasing 
frequency.  These agencies are all part of the Executive Branch of government, 
charged with the duty of enforcing the law.  [¶]  The Courts, however, constitute 
the proper forum for determination of the validity of State statutes.  There is no 
justification for forcing private parties to go to Court in order to require agencies 
of government to perform the duties they have sworn to perform.  [¶]  Proposition 
 
 
27
5 would prohibit the State agency from refusing to act under such circumstances, 
unless an appellate court has ruled the statute is invalid.  [¶]  We urge you to 
support this Proposition 5 in order to insure that appointed officials do not refuse 
to carry out their duties by usurping the authority of the Legislature and the 
Courts.  Your passage of Proposition 5 will help preserve the concept of the 
separation of powers so wisely adopted by our founding fathers.”  (Ballot Pamp. 
Primary Elec. (June 6, 1978) argument in favor of Prop. 5, p. 26.)  Petitioners 
maintain that the rationale set forth in this ballot argument applies to local 
executive officials as well as state administrative agencies, and thus that the term 
“administrative agency” as used in the provision properly should be construed to 
apply to local executive officials. 
The city vigorously contests petitioners’ suggested interpretation of article 
III, section 3.5, maintaining that this provision is addressed only to state, not local, 
administrative agencies, and that in any event the local officials here at issue are 
not an “administrative agency” within the meaning of article III, section 3.5.  The 
city concedes there may be some anomaly in article III, section 3.5’s application 
only to state administrative agencies and not to local executive officials, but insists 
such an anomaly “would not be license to rewrite Section 3.5 and give it a 
meaning nobody had in mind when it was passed.”  The city argues that “[t]he 
voters were responding to a specific problem [involving state administrative 
agencies] when they enacted Section 3.5, and they chose specific means to address 
that problem.  In the end, if some in hindsight question the wisdom of that choice, 
the answer lies in amending California’s Constitution, not judicially rewriting it.”  
In sum, the city asserts that the existing terms of article III, section 3.5 cannot 
properly be interpreted to include local executive officials. 
Although one Court of Appeal decision contains language directly 
supporting petitioners’ argument that article III, section 3.5’s reference to 
 
 
28
administrative agencies properly is interpreted to include local executive officials 
such as county clerks (Billig v. Voges (1990) 223 Cal.App.3d 962, 969 (Billig)), 
the city maintains that the question of the proper scope of article III, section 3.5 
never was raised in Billig, and further that the pertinent language in Billig clearly 
is dictum.  Accordingly, the city argues the appellate court’s decision in Billig 
cannot properly be viewed as resolving the issue whether article III, section 3.5 
applies to local officials.17 
                                             
 
17 
In Billig, supra, 223 Cal.App.3d 962, the plaintiffs had submitted a 
referendum petition to the city clerk, but the clerk refused to process the petition 
or submit it to the city council because the petition did not include the full text of 
the challenged ordinance, as required by section 4052 of the Elections Code.  The 
plaintiffs then sought a writ of mandate in superior court against the clerk, 
claiming that this official’s authority was limited to determining whether there 
were sufficient signatures on the petition and did not extend to rejecting a petition 
for noncompliance with section 4052.  The trial court ruled against the plaintiffs 
and the Court of Appeal affirmed. 
 
The appellate court explained in Billig that the city clerk’s duty “is limited 
to the ministerial function of ascertaining whether the procedural requirements for 
submitting a petition have been met” (Billig, supra, 223 Cal.App.3d at pp. 968-
969), and found that Elections Code section 4052 “involves purely procedural 
requirements for submitting a referendum petition.  Therefore a city clerk who 
refuses to accept a petition for noncompliance with the statute is only performing a 
ministerial function involving no exercise of discretion.”  (Billig, at p. 969.) 
 
Stating that the city clerk lacked discretion not to enforce the statutory 
provision, the Court of Appeal discussed article III, section 3.5 and observed:  
“Administrative agencies, including public officials in charge of such agencies, 
are expressly forbidden from declaring statutes unenforceable, unless an appellate 
court has determined that a particular statute is unconstitutional.  (Cal. Const. 
art. III, § 3.5.)  [Elections Code] [s]ection 4052 has not been declared 
unconstitutional by an appellate court in this state.  Consequently, the offices of 
city clerks throughout the state are mandated by the [C]onstitution to implement 
and enforce the statute’s procedural requirements.  In the instant case, respondent 
had the clear and present ministerial duty to refuse to process appellants’ petition 
because it did not comply with the procedural requirements of section 4052.”  
(Billig, supra, 223 Cal.App.3d at p. 969, italics added.) 
 
Although the italicized language in Billig supports petitioners’ position 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
29
As we shall explain, we have determined that we need not (and thus do not) 
decide in this case whether the actions of the local executive officials here at issue 
fall within the scope or reach of article III, section 3.5, because we conclude that 
prior to the adoption of article III, section 3.5, it already was established under 
California law — as in the overwhelming majority of other states (see, post, at 
pp. 57-61) — that a local executive official, charged with a ministerial duty, 
generally lacks authority to determine that a statute is unconstitutional and on that 
basis refuse to apply the statute.  Because the adoption of article III, section 3.5 
plainly did not grant or expand the authority of local executive officials to 
determine that a statute is unconstitutional and to act in contravention of the 
statute’s terms on the basis of such a determination, we conclude that the city 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
with regard to the scope of article III, section 3.5, there is no indication that any 
party in Billig raised the argument that article III, section 3.5 applies only to state 
agencies and not to local agencies or officials, and thus the court in Billig had no 
occasion to resolve that issue.  Moreover, in any event the discussion of article III, 
section 3.5 in Billig clearly was dictum, because an analysis and resolution of the 
scope of that constitutional provision not only was unnecessary to the decision in 
Billig, but arguably was entirely irrelevant.  The plaintiffs in Billig had not asked 
the city clerk to refrain from applying Elections Code section 4052 on the ground 
that the statute was unconstitutional, and the city clerk’s decision not to accept the 
petition did not involve consideration of whether he had the authority to determine 
the provision’s constitutionality; moreover, the plaintiffs did not raise any 
constitutional challenge to section 4052 in the trial court or on appeal.  Instead, the 
plaintiffs in Billig simply argued that the applicable provisions of section 4052 did 
not authorize a city clerk (as opposed to a court) to reject a petition for 
noncompliance with that statute, and that only a court was authorized to disqualify 
a petition for nonconformance with the requirements of section 4052. 
 
Because the provisions of article III, section 3.5 did not bear on the 
question before the court in Billig, we believe it would be inappropriate to accord 
much significance to the cited language in that decision.   
 
 
30
officials do not possess this authority and that the actions challenged in the present 
case were unauthorized and invalid. 
B 
We begin with a few basic legal principles that were well established prior 
to the adoption of article III, section 3.5 in 1978. 
First, one of the fundamental principles of our constitutional system of 
government is that a statute, once duly enacted, “is presumed to be constitutional.  
Unconstitutionality must be clearly shown, and doubts will be resolved in favor of 
its validity.”  (7 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (9th ed. 1988) Constitutional Law, 
§ 58, pp. 102-103 [citing, among numerous other authorities, In re Madera 
Irrigation District (1891) 92 Cal. 296, 308; San Francisco v. Industrial Acc. Com. 
(1920) 183 Cal. 273, 280; People v. Globe Grain and Mill. Co. (1930) 211 Cal. 
121, 127].) 
Second, it is equally well established that when, as here, a public official’s 
authority to act in a particular area derives wholly from statute, the scope of that 
authority is measured by the terms of the governing statute.  “It is well settled in 
this state and elsewhere, that when a statute prescribes the particular method in 
which a public officer, acting under a special authority, shall perform his duties, 
the mode is the measure of the power.”  (Cowell v. Martin (1872) 43 Cal. 605, 
613-614; see, e.g., County of Alpine v. County of Tuolumne (1958) 49 Cal.2d 787, 
797; California State Restaurant Assn v. Whitlow (1976) 58 Cal.App.3d 340, 
346-347 [“[a]dministrative bodies and officers have only such powers as have 
expressly or impliedly been conferred upon them by the Constitution or by 
statute.”].) 
The city has not identified any provision in the California Constitution or in 
the applicable statutes that purports to grant the county clerk or the county 
recorder (or any other local official) the authority to determine the 
 
 
31
constitutionality of the statutes each public official has a ministerial duty to 
enforce.  Instead, the city’s position appears to be that a public executive official’s 
duty to follow the law (including the Constitution) includes the implied or inherent 
authority to refuse to follow an applicable statute whenever the official personally 
believes the statute to be unconstitutional, even though there has been no judicial 
determination of the statute’s unconstitutionality and despite the existence of the 
rule that a duly enacted statute is presumed to be constitutional. 
As we shall see, the California authorities that were in place prior to the 
adoption of article III, section 3.5, do not support the city’s position. 
C 
Although in this case we need not determine the scope of article III, section 
3.5, the historical background that led to the proposal and adoption of that 
constitutional provision in 1978 nonetheless provides a useful starting point for 
our analysis. As this court explained in Reese v. Kizer (1988) 46 Cal.3d 996, 1002, 
“[a]rticle III, section 3.5, . . .was placed on the ballot by a unanimous vote of the 
Legislature in apparent response to this court’s decision in Southern Pac. 
Transportation v. Public Utilities Com. (1976) 18 Cal.3d 308 [(hereafter Southern 
Pacific]), in which the majority held that the Public Utilities Commission had the 
power to declare a state statute unconstitutional.”  Accordingly, the decision in 
Southern Pacific is an appropriate place to begin. 
In Southern Pacific, the plaintiff railroad company sought review of two 
decisions of the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) in which the PUC held that 
section 1202.3 of the Public Utilities Code, a statute enacted in 1971, was 
unconstitutional.  Section 1202.3 was one of a number of statutes in the Public 
Utilities Code dealing with railroad crossings.  With respect to private or farm 
railroad crossings, Public Utilities Code section 7537 (1) granted “the owner of 
adjoining lands the right to private or farm crossings necessary or convenient for 
 
 
32
egress or ingress” (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d at p. 311), (2) provided that 
the railroad must maintain the crossings, and (3) granted the PUC the authority to 
fix and assess the cost of such crossings.  With respect to railroad crossings on 
public or publicly used roads, Public Utilities Code section 1202 gave the PUC the 
exclusive power “to regulate public or publicly used road or highway crossings, 
including locating, maintaining, protecting, and closing them” (Southern Pacific, 
supra, 18 Cal.3d at p. 312), and further granted the PUC the authority to allocate 
costs among the railroad and the affected public entities responsible for 
maintaining the public or publicly used road, including any costs involved in 
closing a crossing. 
Public Utilities Code section 1202.3, the statute at issue in Southern 
Pacific, provided, in turn, that in any proceeding under Public Utilities Code 
section 1202 “involving a publicly used road or highway not on a publicly 
maintained road system,” the PUC could apportion costs to the public entity if the 
PUC found “(a) express dedication and acceptance of the road or (b) a judicial 
determination of implied dedication.”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d at 
p. 312.)  If neither condition was found, section 1202.3 provided that the PUC 
“shall order the crossing abolished by physical closing.”  Section 1202.3 further 
provided that “the railroad shall in no event be required to bear improvement costs 
‘in excess of what it would be required to bear in connection with the 
improvement of a public street or highway crossing.’ ”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 
18 Cal.3d at pp. 312-313.) 
In Southern Pacific, the PUC concluded in an administrative proceeding 
that Public Utilities Code section 1202.3 was unconstitutional because it 
unlawfully delegated the state’s police power to private litigants by granting 
private litigants absolute discretion to require the closing of a railroad crossing 
merely by commencing a proceeding under Public Utilities Code section 1202.  
 
 
33
The PUC’s conclusion was based in part on its determination that under section 
1202.3, once the PUC found that there had been neither an express dedication and 
acceptance of the publicly used road, nor a judicial determination of an implied 
dedication of the road, the PUC had no alternative but to order the crossing closed 
and to require the railroad to pay for the closing.  (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 
Cal.3d at p. 313.)   
On review, this court unanimously disagreed with the PUC’s constitutional 
determination.  Observing that Public Utilities Code section 1202.3 provided, in its 
introductory phrase, that the statute applied “in any proceeding under Section 
1202,” the court in Southern Pacific reasoned that “the Legislature has declared 
that section 1202.3 is an exception to the former section and that the provisions for 
cost allocation and closing crossings in the latter section are only applicable when 
the commission would otherwise have ordered improvement of a crossing 
pursuant to the former section.  The standard for compelling crossing 
improvement implicit in section 1202 is obviously public convenience and 
necessity, including safety concerns [citations], and this standard must be read into 
section 1202.3.  [¶]  Thus, before the commission may close a crossing under 
section 1202.3, it must not only find public use and lack of requisite dedication, 
but also find that necessity and convenience preclude continued use of the crossing 
in its existing condition.  Such findings — rather than mere commencement of a 
proceeding under section 1202 — is the basis for closing a crossing under section 
1202.3.  [¶]  The function of the private litigant within the statutory framework is 
merely to call the commission’s attention to the need for improving or closing a 
crossing and perhaps to urge action on the commission.”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 
18 Cal.3d at p. 314, italics added.) 
As noted, in Southern Pacific all of the justices of this court agreed that the 
PUC had erred in concluding that Public Utilities Code section 1202.3 was 
 
 
34
unconstitutional.  Although the briefs filed in this court in Southern Pacific did not 
raise any question regarding the authority of the PUC to determine the 
constitutionality of section 1202.3,18 and the majority in Southern Pacific did not 
address that question in the text of the opinion, Justice Mosk authored a vigorous 
concurring and dissenting opinion in Southern Pacific, arguing strongly that 
neither the PUC nor any other administrative agency “may declare a duly enacted 
statute unconstitutional,” and that “it is incongruous for the will of the people of 
the state, reflected by their elected legislators, to be thwarted by a governmental 
body which exists only to implement that will.”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 
Cal.3d at p. 315 (conc. & dis. opn. by Mosk, J.).) 
Justice Mosk’s concurring and dissenting opinion in Southern Pacific 
acknowledged that a prior California decision — Walker v. Munro (1960) 178 
Cal.App.2d 67 (hereafter Walker) — had held that an administrative agency that 
has been granted judicial or quasi-judicial power by the California Constitution (a 
type of entity commonly referred to as a “constitutional agency”)19 has the 
authority to consider the constitutionality of a statute in the course of its quasi-
judicial proceedings.  Justice Mosk suggested, however, that Walker had been 
“indirectly criticized and implicitly disapproved” (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 
                                             
 
18  
Indeed, in the petition filed in this court, the petitioner in Southern Pacific 
expressly stated that it did “not question the authority of the Commission, which 
has quasi judicial powers and is a court of special jurisdiction, to declare and hold 
a statute to be unconstitutional.”   
19  
See, e.g., Brice v. Dept. of Alcoholic Bev. Control (1957) 153 Cal.App.2d 
315, 320 (“[The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control] is a constitutional 
agency that has succeeded to some of the powers of the State Board of 
Equalization in alcoholic beverage control matters.  Being an agency upon which 
the Constitution has conferred limited judicial powers, its decisions on factual 
matters must be affirmed if there is substantial evidence to support them.”). 
 
 
35
Cal.3d at p. 316 (conc. & dis. opn. by Mosk, J.)) in State of California v. Superior 
Court (1974) 12 Cal.3d 237, 250-251 (hereafter State of California v. Superior 
Court (Veta)), and he took issue with “the debatable premise that any and all 
‘judicial power’ inherently entails the authority to declare a law unconstitutional.”  
(Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d at p. 317.)  Relying upon language in 
numerous decisions of the United States Supreme Court indicating that an 
administrative agency or executive official has no power to adjudicate 
constitutional issues (id. at p. 316), and decisions from other jurisdictions holding 
“that administrative agencies lack the powers appropriated in this case” (ibid.), 
Justice Mosk concluded that the extensive powers granted by the California 
Constitution to the PUC did not include the power to declare a statute 
unconstitutional and to refuse to apply it. 
The majority in Southern Pacific responded to Justice Mosk’s concurring 
and dissenting opinion in a lengthy footnote.  (See Southern Pacific, supra, 18 
Cal.3d 308, 311-312, fn. 2.)  The initial portion of the footnote contains some 
broad language that could be read to support the conclusion that the duty of any 
administrative agency or public official to obey the Constitution affords such 
agency or official the authority to determine the constitutional validity of statutes 
the agency or official is charged with enforcing.  The majority in Southern Pacific, 
however, ultimately rested its holding that the PUC had the authority to determine 
the constitutional validity of statutes on the circumstance that the California 
Constitution grants broad judicial or quasi-judicial power to the PUC. 
The majority in Southern Pacific stated in this regard:  “[T]he Constitution 
and statutes of this state grant the commission wide administrative, legislative, and 
judicial powers.  [Citations.]  The Legislature has limited the judiciary from 
interfering with the commission by restricting review to the Supreme Court and by 
additionally restricting review to determining ‘whether the commission has 
 
 
36
regularly pursued its authority, including a determination of whether the order or 
decision under review violates any right of the petitioner under the Constitution of 
the United States or of this State.’  (Italics added; [citations].)  Public Utilities 
Code section 1732 provides corporations and individuals may not raise matters in 
any court not presented to the commission on petition for rehearing, reflecting, 
when read with the judicial review sections, legislative determination that all 
issues must be presented to the commission.  Under the broad powers granted it, 
the commission may determine the validity of statutes.”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 
18 Cal.3d at pp. 311-312, fn. 2, italics added.)   
This review of the decision in Southern Pacific demonstrates that there was 
a significant disagreement in this court on the particular question whether a so-
called constitutional agency (like the PUC), that has been granted the authority to 
exercise quasi-judicial power by the California Constitution, has the authority to 
determine that a statute the agency is called upon to apply is unconstitutional and 
need not be followed.  We are unaware, however, of any case, either prior to or 
subsequent to Southern Pacific, that suggests that under the California 
Constitution a local executive official such as a county clerk, who is charged with 
the ministerial duty to enforce a statute, has the authority to exercise judicial 
power by determining whether a statute is unconstitutional. 
The case of Walker, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d 67, cited (and criticized) in 
Justice Mosk’s concurring and dissenting opinion in Southern Pacific, appears to 
be the first case in California to address the question whether an administrative 
agency has the authority to determine the constitutionality of a statute that the 
agency is required to enforce.  In Walker, the plaintiffs were retail liquor dealers 
who had been charged in an administrative proceeding before the Department of 
Alcoholic Beverage Control with violating the fair trade provisions of the 
California Alcoholic Beverage Control Act.  While the administrative proceeding 
 
 
37
was pending, the plaintiffs filed a declaratory judgment action in superior court 
against the administrative officials, seeking a declaration that the fair trade 
provisions of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Act were unconstitutional, and an 
order enjoining the officials from enforcing those provisions.  The trial court in 
Walker granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, relying upon the 
circumstance that the same constitutional issue had been raised in the pending 
administrative proceeding and upon the trial court’s conclusion “that it is more 
expeditious and proper that the Department rule on the question before the court is 
required to rule on it.”  (178 Cal.App.2d at p. 70.) 
On appeal, the plaintiffs argued that the exhaustion of remedies doctrine 
upon which the trial court had relied was inapplicable, because the Department of 
Alcoholic Beverage Control “does not have the power . . . to decide constitutional 
questions.”  (Walker, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d at p. 73.)  In rejecting this contention, 
the Court of Appeal in Walker began by referring to the applicable provision of the 
California Constitution that empowers the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals 
Board to review questions “ ‘whether the department has proceeded without or in 
excess of its jurisdiction, whether the department has proceeded in the manner 
required by law, whether the decision is supported by the findings, and whether 
the findings are supported by substantial evidence in light of the whole record.’  
(Cal. Const., art. XX, § 22.)”  (178 Cal.App.2d at p. 73.)  The court in Walker then 
observed: “The department and the Appeals Board are thus constitutional agencies 
upon which limited judicial powers have been conferred.  [Citations.]”  (Ibid., 
italics added.) 
In response to the plaintiffs’ claim in Walker that the department only could 
make findings of fact and that the appeals board only was empowered “to review 
certain questions of law, which are only procedural” (Walker, supra, 178 
Cal.App.2d at p. 74), the court in Walker stated: “However, there does not appear 
 
 
38
to be any basis for so limiting the grant of power to the Appeals Board.  The 
Appeals Board may determine whether the department acted within its 
jurisdiction.  In United Insurance Co. v. Maloney [(1954)] 127 Cal.App.2d [155,] 
157, the court stated: ‘A charge of unconstitutional action goes to the very 
jurisdiction of the administrative officer or body to entertain the proceeding . . . .’  
[Citation.]  This would also seem applicable to a charge that the statute which the 
agency is seeking to enforce is unconstitutional.”  (Walker, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d 
at p. 74.) 
Accordingly, in concluding that the administrative agency in that case had 
the authority to determine, at least in the first instance, the question whether the 
fair trade statutes were unconstitutional, the court in Walker specifically relied 
upon the circumstance that the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals Board had 
been granted the authority by the California Constitution to exercise limited 
judicial power.20 
As noted in Justice Mosk’s concurring and dissenting opinion in Southern 
Pacific, this court held in State of California v. Superior Court (Veta), supra, 12 
                                             
 
20  
The significance attached by the court in Walker to the California 
Constitution’s grant of judicial power to the Alcoholic Beverage Control Appeals 
Board is confirmed by the distinction the Walker decision drew between the case 
before it and a then recent decision of the California Supreme Court that was 
heavily relied upon by the plaintiffs.  The court in Walker explained: “County of 
Alpine v. County of Tuolumne (1958) 49 Cal.2d 787, referred to extensively by 
plaintiffs, is not in point.  There the county of Alpine brought an action to 
determine its boundaries with defendant counties.  Judgment of dismissal was 
reversed.  Defendants asserted that the county of Alpine had not exhausted an 
administrative remedy before the State Lands Commission.  But the court held that 
the agency [the State Lands Commission] was empowered only to ‘survey and 
mark’ boundaries. . . .  [I]t was without jurisdiction to make judicial 
determinations of boundaries and therefore the county of Alpine could properly 
maintain its action.”  (Walker, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d at p. 73, italics added.)   
 
 
39
Cal.3d 237, some years after the appellate court’s decision in Walker, that a 
plaintiff seeking a declaration that the California Coastal Zone Conservation Act 
of 1972 was unconstitutional was not required to pursue that constitutional claim 
before the Coastal Zone Conservation Commission prior to bringing a court 
action.  (12 Cal.3d at pp. 250-251.)  Although there is some language in Veta 
critical of Walker, the two cases nonetheless are clearly and easily distinguishable, 
because the Coastal Zone Conservation Commission, unlike the Alcoholic 
Beverage Control Appeals Board, had not been granted any judicial power by the 
California Constitution.  Thus, the holding in State of California v. Superior Court 
(Veta) that the commission lacked authority to pass on the constitutionality of the 
statute establishing its status and functions was not inconsistent with the Walker 
decision. 
In light of the foregoing review of the relevant case law, we believe that 
after this court’s decision in Southern Pacific the state of the law in this area was 
clear:  administrative agencies that had been granted judicial or quasi-judicial 
power by the California Constitution possessed the authority, in the exercise of 
their administrative functions, to determine the constitutionality of statutes, but 
agencies that had not been granted such power under the California Constitution 
lacked such authority.  (See Hand v. Board of Examiners in Veterinary Medicine 
(1977) 66 Cal.App.3d 605, 617-619.)  Accordingly, these decisions recognize that, 
under California law, the determination whether a statute is unconstitutional and 
need not be obeyed is an exercise of judicial power and thus is reserved to those 
officials or entities that have been granted such power by the California 
Constitution.21   
                                             
 
21 
In this regard it is worth noting that article III, section 3 of the California 
Constitution explicitly provides: “The powers of State government are legislative, 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
40
Given the foregoing decisions and their reasoning, it appears evident that 
under California law as it existed prior to the adoption of article III, section 3.5 of 
the California Constitution, a local executive official, such as a county clerk or 
county recorder, possessed no authority to determine the constitutionality of a 
statute that the official had a ministerial duty to enforce.  If, in the absence of a 
grant of judicial authority from the California Constitution, an administrative 
agency that was required by law to reach its decisions only after conducting court-
like quasi-judicial proceedings did not generally possess the authority to pass on 
the constitutionality of a statute that the agency was required to enforce, it follows 
even more so that a local executive official who is charged simply with the 
ministerial duty of enforcing a statute, and who generally acts without any quasi-
judicial authority or procedure whatsoever, did not possess such authority.  As 
indicated above, we are unaware of any California case that suggests such a public 
official has been granted judicial or quasi-judicial power by the California 
Constitution.22   
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
executive, and judicial.  Persons charged with the exercise of one power may not 
exercise either of the others except as permitted by this Constitution.”  (Italics 
added.)  
22  
The city, in a footnote contained in its reply brief to several amicus curiae 
briefs, maintains that the actions of its officials did not constitute the exercise of 
judicial powers, citing a brief passage in this court’s decision in Lusardi Constr. 
Co. v. Aubry (1992) 1 Cal.4th 976, 993 (Lusardi) (the Director of the Department 
of Industrial Relations’ “determination that a project is a public work . . . cannot 
be accurately characterized as ‘judicial,’ because it does not encompass the 
conduct of a hearing or a binding order for any type of relief”).  In Lusardi, 
however, the director, unlike the city officials here, acted to enforce a statutory 
provision; he did not defy or disregard a statutory provision on the basis of his 
own determination that the statute was unconstitutional.  Lusardi clearly provides 
no support for the city’s position.   
 
 
41
The city, in arguing that article III, section 3.5 does not apply to local 
officials, relies upon the statement in Strumsky v. San Diego County Employees 
Ret. Assn. (1974) 11 Cal.3d 28, 36, that the separation of powers clause in article 
III “is inapplicable to the government below the state level.”23  The city might 
well argue that this language in Strumsky also renders inapposite the line of 
California cases (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d 308; State of California v. 
Superior Court (Veta), supra, 12 Cal.3d 237; and Walker, supra, 178 Cal.App.2d 
67) that we have just discussed.  The city fails to recognize, however, that the 
decision in Strumsky emphatically did not hold that under the California 
Constitution local executive officials are free to exercise judicial power.  On the 
contrary, in Strumsky this court expressly overruled a line of earlier California 
decisions that had held (for purposes of determining the appropriate standard of 
judicial review of a decision of a local administrative agency) that such an agency 
could exercise judicial power; the opinion in Strumsky concluded instead that a 
local administrative agency has no authority under the California Constitution to 
exercise judicial power.  (Strumsky, supra, 11 Cal.3d at pp. 36-44.)  In light of this 
holding in Strumsky, it appears clear that a local executive official who makes 
decisions — without the benefit of even a quasi-judicial proceeding — has no 
                                             
 
23   
The statement in numerous California decisions that the separation of 
powers provision of article III is inapplicable to government below the state level 
means simply that, in establishing a governmental structure for the purpose of 
managing municipal affairs, the Legislature (through statutes) or local entities 
(through charter provisions and the like) may combine executive, legislative, and 
judicial functions in a manner different from the structure that the California 
Constitution prescribes for state government.  (See, e.g., Wulzen v. Board of 
Supervisors (1894) 101 Cal. 15, 25-26; People v. Provines (1868) 34 Cal. 520, 
532-540.)  As explained hereafter, the statement does not mean that a local 
executive official has the inherent authority to exercise judicial power. 
 
 
42
authority to exercise judicial power, such as by determining the constitutionality of 
applicable statutory provisions. 
Accordingly, we conclude that at the time article III, section 3.5 was 
adopted, it was clear under California law that a local executive official did not 
have the authority to determine that a statute is unconstitutional or to refuse to 
enforce a statute in the absence of a judicial determination that the statute is 
unconstitutional.24   
The adoption of article III, section 3.5, of course, effectively overruled the 
majority’s holding in Southern Pacific and largely embraced the reasoning set 
forth in Justice Mosk’s concurring and dissenting opinion, amending the 
California Constitution to provide that “[a]n administrative agency, including an 
administrative agency created by the Constitution or an initiative statute, has no 
power . . . [t]o . . . refuse to enforce a statute on the basis of its being 
unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such 
statute is unconstitutional.”  (Italics added.)  As we already have noted, we need 
                                             
 
24  
In a somewhat related context, this court held in Farley v. Healey (1967) 67 
Cal.2d 325 that an acting registrar of voters, who refused to determine whether 
sufficient signatures had been submitted to qualify a local initiative measure for 
the ballot because of his conclusion that the content of the initiative was not a 
proper subject for a local initiative, “exceeded his authority in undertaking to 
determine whether the proposed initiative was within the power of the electorate to 
adopt.”  (67 Cal.2d at p. 327.)  We explained that under the applicable charter 
provision, the registrar’s “duty is limited to the ministerial function of ascertaining 
whether the procedural requirements for submitting an initiative measure have 
been met.  It is not his function to determine whether a proposed initiative will be 
valid if enacted or whether a proposed declaration of policy is one to which the 
initiative may apply.  These questions may involve difficult legal issues that only a 
court can determine.  Given compliance with the formal requirements for 
submitting an initiative, the registrar must place it on the ballot unless he is 
directed to do otherwise by a court on a compelling showing that a proper case has 
been established for interfering with the initiative power.”  (Ibid., italics added.) 
 
 
43
not and do not decide in this case what effect the adoption of article III, section 3.5 
has on the authority of local executive officials, because it is abundantly clear that 
this constitutional amendment did not expand the authority of such officials so as 
to permit them to refuse to enforce a statute solely on the basis of their view that 
the statute is unconstitutional.  Accordingly, we conclude that under California 
law a local executive official generally lacks such authority.  
D 
In support of its contrary claim that, as a general matter, California law 
long has recognized that an executive public official has the authority to refuse to 
comply with a ministerial statutory duty whenever the official personally believes 
the statute is unconstitutional, the city relies upon a line of California decisions 
that have reviewed the validity of statutes or ordinances authorizing the issuance 
of bonds, the letting of public contracts, or the disbursement of public funds in 
mandate actions filed against public officials who refused to comply with a 
ministerial duty.  As the city accurately notes, numerous California decisions 
addressing these three subjects have held that “mandate is the proper remedy to 
compel a public officer to perform ministerial acts such as issuance of bonds [and 
that] the constitutionality of the law authorizing a bond issuance may be 
determined in a proceeding for such a writ.”  (California Housing Finance 
Agency v. Elliott (1976) 17 Cal.3d 575, 579-580 [bond]; see, e.g., California 
Educational Facilities Authority v. Priest (1974) 12 Cal.3d 593, 598 [bond]; 
Metropolitan Water District v. Marquardt (1963) 59 Cal.2d 159, 170-171 [public 
contract]; City of Whittier v. Dixon (1944) 24 Cal.2d 664, 666 [warrant]; Golden 
Gate Bridge etc. Dist. v. Felt (1931) 214 Cal. 308, 315-320 [bond]; Los Angeles 
Co. F.C. Dist. v. Hamilton (1917) 177 Cal. 119, 121 [bond]; Denman v. Broderick 
(1896) 111 Cal. 95, 99, 105 [warrant].)   
 
 
44
In each of the foregoing cases, the mandate action was instituted after a 
public official who was under a statutory duty to perform a ministerial act that was 
a necessary step in the issuance of the bond, the letting of the contract, or the 
disbursement of public funds (such as affixing the official’s signature to the bond 
or contract, or issuing a warrant) refused to perform that act based upon the 
official’s ostensible doubts as to the constitutional validity of the statute 
authorizing the bond, contract, or public expenditure.  The city emphasizes that in 
none of these cases did the court criticize such a public official for declining to 
perform his or her ministerial act, but instead concluded that the public official’s 
refusal to act was an appropriate means of bringing the constitutional question of 
the validity of the bond, contract, or expenditure of public funds before the court 
for resolution.  The city maintains that these decisions demonstrate that the general 
rule in California always has been that every public official is free to determine the 
constitutional validity of the statutory provisions that he or she has a ministerial 
duty to enforce or execute, and free to refuse to perform the ministerial act if he or 
she in good faith believes the statute to be unconstitutional.  The city argues that 
the line of decisions we have analyzed above — holding, prior to the adoption of 
article III, section 3.5, that only administrative agencies constitutionally authorized 
to exercise judicial power have the authority to determine the constitutional 
validity of statutes — involved a limited exception applicable only to 
administrative agencies. 
We believe the city’s argument misconceives the state of the law prior to 
the adoption of article III, section 3.5.  As we have discussed above, the general 
rule established by California decisions at the time Southern Pacific, supra, 18 
Cal.3d 308, was decided was that, among administrative agencies, only one that 
had been granted judicial power under the California Constitution possessed the 
authority to determine the constitutionality of a statute it was charged with 
 
 
45
enforcing and to decline to apply the statute if the agency determined it was 
unconstitutional.  As already explained, if a nonconstitutional administrative 
agency that rendered its decisions after an extensive quasi-judicial procedure — in 
which the arguments for and against constitutionality could be fully presented and 
considered in a quasi-judicial fashion — lacked authority to determine 
constitutional issues, it clearly would be anomalous to permit an ordinary 
executive official (who carries out his or her official action without the benefit of 
any sort of quasi-judicial procedures) to determine the constitutionality of a statute 
and to refuse to apply it based simply upon the official’s own good faith belief that 
the statute is unconstitutional.  Thus, the general rule in California  and, as we 
shall discuss below, in most jurisdictions  was (and continues to be) that an 
executive official does not possess such authority.   
It is the line of public finance cases upon which the city relies that involves 
the exceptional situation.  As the applicable decisions make clear, the public 
official in each of those cases was permitted to refuse to perform a ministerial act 
when he or she had doubts about the validity of the underlying bond, contract, or 
public expenditure, both in order to ensure that a mechanism was available for 
obtaining a timely judicial determination of the validity of the bond issue, 
contract, or public expenditure — a determination often essential to the 
marketability of bonds or to the contracting parties’ willingness to go forward with 
the contract (see, e.g., Golden Gate Bridge etc. Dist. v. Felt, supra, 214 Cal. 308, 
315), or to avoid irreparable loss of public funds25 — and in recognition of the 
                                             
 
25  
The public finance cases upon which the city relies generally preceded the 
adoption of California’s validation statutes, which currently permit a public 
agency to file an in rem action in order to obtain a judicial determination of the 
validity of bonds, warrants, contracts, obligations, or similar evidences of 
indebtedness.  (See Code Civ. Proc. § 860 et seq. [initially adopted in 1961 (Stats. 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
46
circumstance that, in this specific context, the public official frequently faced 
potential personal liability (as distinguished from the potential liability of a 
governmental entity) if the bond, contract, or public expenditure ultimately was 
found to be invalid.  (See, e.g., Golden Gate Bridge etc. Dist. v. Felt,, supra, 214 
Cal. at pp. 316-317; Denman v. Broderick, supra, 111 Cal. 96, 105.)   
Although the city points to language in some of these decisions that could 
be read to support the city’s broad position here, the holdings in these cases clearly 
are limited to a public official’s ability to refuse to perform a ministerial act 
necessary for the execution of a bond issue or public contract, or the disbursement 
of public funds, where such refusal permits a judicial determination prior to the 
actual sale of the bonds, the carrying out of the contract, or the disbursement of 
public funds, and where the official’s personal liability frequently is at stake.  
Contrary to the city’s contention, the circumstance that a public official may 
refuse to perform a ministerial act in that context does not signify that in all other 
contexts every public official is free to refuse to perform a ministerial act based 
upon the official’s view that the statute the officer is statutorily obligated to apply 
is unconstitutional.   
The city attempts to bring the present matter within the reach of the 
foregoing cases by arguing that if the city officials enforced California’s current 
marriage laws limiting marriage to a man and a woman, the officials would face 
possible personal liability for monetary damages under state or federal law if the 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
1961, ch. 1479, § 1, p. 3331)].)  The current statutes provide that such actions 
“shall be given preference over all other civil actions . . . to the end that such 
actions shall be speedily heard and determined.” (Code Civ. Proc., § 867.)  
 
 
47
marriage statutes subsequently were determined to be unconstitutional.  The city’s 
argument in this regard clearly lacks merit.   
First, as a matter of state law, Government Code section 820.6 explicitly 
provides that “[i]f a public employee acts in good faith, without malice, and under 
the apparent authority of an enactment that is unconstitutional, invalid, or 
inapplicable, he is not liable for an injury caused thereby except to the extent that 
he would have been liable had the enactment been constitutional, valid and 
applicable.”  Thus, the officials clearly would not have incurred liability under 
California law simply for following the current marriage statutes and declining to 
issue marriage licenses or register marriage certificates in contravention of those 
statutes.  Second, under federal law, a local public official generally is immunized 
from liability for official acts so long as the official’s conduct “does not violate 
clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person 
would have known” (Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982) 457 U.S. 800, 818, italics 
added; see Anderson v. Creighton (1987) 483 U.S. 635, 639), and, as we discuss 
below (see, post, pp. 54-57), in this instance there simply is no plausible argument 
that the city officials would have violated “clearly established” constitutional 
rights by continuing to enforce California’s current marriage statutes in the 
absence of a judicial determination that the statutes are unconstitutional.  (Cf. 
LSO, Ltd. v. Stroh (9th Cir. 2000) 205 F.3d 1146, 1160 [finding state officials 
were not entitled to qualified immunity when “no reasonable official could have 
believed” that application of the statute at issue was constitutional in light of prior 
controlling judicial decisions].)  Finally, even if the city officials were to be sued 
in their personal capacity for actions taken pursuant to statute and in the scope of 
their employment, under Government Code section 825 the officials would be 
entitled to have their public employer provide a defense and pay any judgment 
entered in such an action, whether the action was based on a state law claim or a 
 
 
48
claim under the federal civil rights statutes.  (See Williams v. Horvath (1976) 16 
Cal.3d 834, 842-848.)  Accordingly, there is no merit to the city’s contention that 
the actions of the city officials that are challenged here can be defended as 
necessary to avoid the incurring of personal liability on the part of such officials.   
E 
Some academic commentators, while confirming that as a general rule 
executive officials must comply with duly enacted statutes even when the officials 
believe the provisions are unconstitutional, have suggested that there may be room 
to recognize an exception to this general rule in instances in which a public 
official’s refusal to apply the statute would provide the most practical or 
reasonable means of enabling the question of the statute’s constitutionality to be 
brought before a court.  (See, e.g., May, Presidential Defiance of 
“Unconstitutional” Laws: Reviving the Royal Prerogative (1994) 21 Hastings 
Const. L.Q. 865, 994-996.)26  As we have just seen, the line of public finance 
cases relied upon by the city may be viewed as an example of just such a limited 
                                             
 
26  
A number of law review articles suggest that the federal Constitution 
should be interpreted as permitting the President of the United States to refuse to 
enforce a statute that the President believes is unconstitutional.  (See, e.g., 
Easterbrook, Presidential Review (1990) 40 Case W. Res. L.Rev. 905.)  Other 
scholars, however, have made a strong argument that the history of the 
proceedings of the constitutional convention that drafted the federal Constitution, 
and in particular the Founders’ explicit rejection of a proposal for an absolute 
presidential veto, refutes such an interpretation. (See, e.g., May, Presidential 
Defiance of ‘Unconstitutional Laws: Reviving the Royal Prerogative, supra, 21 
Hastings Const. L.Q. 865, 872-895.)  To date, no court has accepted the contention 
that the President possesses such authority.  (See, e.g., Ameron, Inc. v. U.S. Army 
Corp. of Eng’rs (3d Cir. 1986) 787 F.2d 875, 889 & fn. 11 [“This claim of right 
for the President to declare statutes unconstitutional and to declare his refusal to 
execute them, as distinguished from his undisputed right to veto, criticize, or even 
refuse to defend in court, statutes which he regards as unconstitutional, is dubious 
at best.”])   
 
 
49
exception, and there are a number of other California decisions in which a 
constitutional challenge to a statute or other legislative enactment has been 
brought before a court for judicial resolution by virtue of a public entity’s refusal 
to comply with the statute, under circumstances in which the public entity had a 
personal stake or interest in the constitutional issue and the public entity’s action 
was the most practicable or reasonable method of obtaining a judicial 
determination of the validity of the statute.  (See, e.g., County of Riverside v. 
Superior Court (2003) 30 Cal.4th 278 [impingement on county’s home rule 
authority]; Star-Kist Foods, Inc. v. County of Los Angeles (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1, 5-10 
[impingement on county’s taxing authority].)   
Although it may be appropriate in some circumstances for a public entity or 
public official to refuse or decline to enforce a statute as a means of bringing the 
constitutionality of the statute before a court for judicial resolution, it is 
nonetheless clear that such an exception does not justify the actions of the local 
officials at issue in the present case.  Here, there existed a clear and readily 
available means, other than the officials’ wholesale defiance of the applicable 
statutes, to ensure that the constitutionality of the current marriage statutes would 
be decided by a court.  If the local officials charged with the ministerial duty of 
issuing marriage licenses and registering marriage certificates believed the state’s 
current marriage statutes are unconstitutional and should be tested in court, they 
could have denied a same-sex couple’s request for a marriage license and advised 
the couple to challenge the denial in superior court.  That procedure — a lawsuit 
brought by a couple who have been denied a license under existing statutes — is 
the procedure that was utilized to challenge the constitutionality of California’s 
antimiscegenation statute in Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711, and the 
procedure apparently utilized in all of the other same-sex marriage cases that have 
been litigated recently in other states.  (See, e.g., Baehr v. Lewin (Hawaii 1993) 
 
 
50
852 P.2d 44; Goodridge v. Department of Pub. Health (Mass. 2003) 798 N.E.2d 
941; Baker v. State of Vermont (Vt. 1999) 744 A.2d 864.)  The city cannot 
plausibly claim that the desire to obtain a judicial ruling on the constitutional issue 
justified the wholesale defiance of the applicable statutes that occurred here.27   
Accordingly, the city cannot defend the challenged actions on the ground 
that such actions were necessary to obtain a judicial determination of the 
constitutionality of California’s marriage statutes. 
F 
The city also relies on the circumstance that each of the city officials in 
question took an oath of office to “support and defend” the state and federal 
Constitutions,28 suggesting that a public official would violate his or her oath of 
                                             
 
27  
As noted above, after several mandate actions were filed against the city in 
superior court challenging the actions of the city officials, the city filed a cross-
complaint in one of the actions, seeking a declaratory judgment that the marriage 
statutes are unconstitutional insofar as they limit marriage to a union between a 
man and a woman.  (See, ante, p. 9, fn. 6.)  We have no occasion in this case to 
determine whether the city properly could maintain a declaratory judgment action 
in this setting, but we note that in another context the Legislature specifically has 
authorized a public official who questions the constitutionality or validity of an 
enactment to bring a declaratory judgment action rather than act in contravention 
of the statute.  (See Rev. & Tax. Code, § 538; see also City of Cotati v. Cashman 
(2002) 29 Cal.4th 69, 79-80.)   
28  
Article XX, section 3 of the California Constitution provides in relevant 
part:  “Members of the Legislature, and all public officers and employees, 
executive, legislative, and judicial, except such inferior officers and employees as 
may be by law exempted, shall, before they enter upon the duties of their 
respective offices, take and subscribe the following oath or affirmation: [¶] ‘I, 
____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the 
Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of California 
against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance 
to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of 
California; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
51
office were the official to perform a ministerial act under a statute that the official 
personally believes violates the Constitution.  In our view, this contention clearly 
lacks merit. 
As Justice Mosk explained in his concurring and dissenting opinion in 
Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d 308, 319, a public official “faithfully upholds 
the Constitution by complying with the mandates of the Legislature, leaving to 
courts the decision whether those mandates are invalid.”  A public official does 
not honor his or her oath to defend the Constitution by taking action in 
contravention of the restrictions of his or her office or authority and justifying 
such action by reference to his or her personal constitutional views.  For example, 
it is clear that a justice of this court or of an intermediate appellate court does not 
act in contravention of his or her oath of office when the justice follows a 
controlling constitutional decision of a higher court even though the justice 
personally believes that the controlling decision was wrongly decided and that the 
Constitution actually requires the opposite result.  On the contrary, the oath to 
support and defend the Constitution requires a public official to act within the 
constraints of our constitutional system, not to disregard presumptively valid 
statutes and take action in violation of such statutes on the basis of the official’s 
own determination of what the Constitution means.29  (See also State v. State 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties upon 
which I am about to enter.’ ” 
29  
The brief footnote discussion in Board of Education v. Allen (1968) 392 
U.S. 236, 241, footnote 5, relied upon by the city, does not conflict with this 
conclusion.  In Allen, officials of a local public school district brought a court 
action challenging the validity, under the establishment clause of the First 
Amendment, of a state statute that required the school district to loan books free of 
charge to all students in the district, including students attending private religious 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
52
Board of Equalizers (Fla. 1922) 94 So. 681, 682-683 [“The contention that the 
oath of a public official requiring him to obey the Constitution places upon him 
the duty or obligation to determine whether an act is constitutional before he will 
obey it is . . . without merit.  The fallacy in it is that every act of the legislature is 
presumed constitutional until judicially declared otherwise, and the oath of office 
‘to obey the Constitution’ means to obey the Constitution, not as the officer 
decides, but as judicially determined.”].)30   
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
schools.  In the footnote in question, the court in Allen noted that no one had 
questioned the standing of the local district and its officials “to press their claim in 
this Court,” and then stated that “[b]elieving [the statute in question] to be 
unconstitutional, [the officials] are in the position of having to choose between 
violating their oath [to support the United States Constitution] and taking a step — 
refusal to comply with [the applicable statute] — that would likely bring their 
expulsion from office and also a reduction in state funding for their school 
districts.  There can be no doubt that appellants thus have a ‘personal stake in the 
outcome’ of this litigation.”  (Allen, 392 U.S. at p. 241, fn. 5 [quoting Baker v. 
Carr (1962) 369 U.S. 186, 204].)   The footnote’s reference to the officials’ oath 
to support the Constitution indicates no more than that the public officials’ belief 
that the statute was unconstitutional afforded them standing to bring a court action 
to challenge the statute.  The footnote in Allen does not hold that the federal 
Constitution, or a public official’s oath to support the federal Constitution, 
authorizes a state official to undertake official action forbidden by a state statute 
based solely on the official’s belief that the statute is unconstitutional, and, as 
discussed below (post, pp. 65-68), numerous federal authorities refute that 
proposition. 
30  
The city also obliquely suggests that the general rule requiring a public 
official to perform a ministerial duty prescribed by statute, despite the official’s 
personal view that the statute is unconstitutional, is contrary to the teaching of the 
Nuremberg trials, which rejected the “I was just following orders” defense.  In 
response to a similar claim, the federal district court in Haring v. Blumenthal 
(D.D.C. 1979) 471 F.Supp. 1172, 1178, footnote 15, cogently observed:  
“Plaintiff’s comparison of his situation with that of the Nuremberg defendants is 
grossly simplistic.  The Nuremberg defendants could have escaped liability by 
failing to seek and retain positions which exposed them to the execution of 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
53
G 
The city further contends that a general rule requiring an executive official 
to comply with an existing statute unless and until the statute has been judicially 
determined to be unconstitutional is impractical and would lead to intolerable 
circumstances.  The city posits a hypothetical example of a public official faced 
with a statute that is identical in all respects to another statute that a court already 
has determined is unconstitutional, and suggests it would be absurd to require the 
official to apply the clearly invalid statute in that instance.  For support, the city 
points to a passage in the majority opinion in Southern Pacific, which asks 
rhetorically:  “[W]hen the United States Supreme Court, for example, repudiates 
the separate but equal doctrine established by the statutes of one state, should the 
school boards of other states continue to apply identical statutes until a court 
declares them invalid [?]”  (Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d 308, 311, fn. 2.) 
Whatever force this argument might have in a case in which a governing 
decision previously has found an identical statute unconstitutional or in which the 
invalidity of the statute is so patent or clearly established that no reasonable 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
objectionable activity; and, should plaintiff feel sufficiently strongly about the 
matter, he may do likewise.  Beyond that, plaintiff’s analogy demonstrates 
primarily that debates and dialogues on public issues have become so debased in 
recent years that such terms as genocide, war crime, crimes against humanity, and 
the like are bandied about with considerable abandon in connection with almost 
every conceivable controversial issue of public policy.  There is not the slightest 
similarity between the crimes committed under the aegis of a violent dictatorship 
and the implementation of laws adopted under a system of government which 
offers free elections, freedom of expression, and an independent judiciary as 
safeguards against excesses and as a guarantee of the ultimate rule of a sovereign 
citizenry.”  We agree. 
 
 
54
official could believe the statute is constitutional,31 the argument plainly is of no 
avail here.  Although we have no occasion in this case to determine the 
constitutionality of the current California marriage statutes, we can say with 
confidence that the asserted invalidity of those statutes certainly is not so patent or 
clearly established that no reasonable official could believe that the current 
California marriage statutes are valid.  Indeed, the city cannot point to any judicial 
decision that has held a statute limiting marriage to a man and a woman 
unconstitutional under the California or federal Constitution.  Instead, the city 
relies on state court decisions from Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii, that, in 
interpreting their own state constitutions, assertedly have found similar statutory 
restrictions to violate provisions of their state’s own constitution.  (See Goodridge 
v. Department of Pub. Health, supra, 798 N.E.2d 941; Baker v. State of Vermont, 
supra, 744 A.2d 864; Baehr v. Lewin, supra, 852 P.2d 44.)32  A significant 
                                             
 
31 
See, for example, Schmid v. Lovett (1984) 154 Cal.App.3d 466, 474 
(holding that article III, section 3.5, of the California Constitution did not require 
public community college officials to continue to apply a statute requiring public 
employees to sign an anti-Communist-Party loyalty oath when comparable statutes 
had been held unconstitutional by both federal and state supreme court decisions) 
and LSO Ltd. v. Stroh, supra, 205 F.2d 1146, 1160 (holding that no reasonable 
official could have believed that a statute prohibiting exhibition of nonobscene 
erotic art on any premises holding a liquor license could constitutionally be 
applied in light of a then recent United States Supreme Court decision).  
32  
Of the three decisions cited by the city, the Massachusetts decision in 
Goodridge v. Department of Pub. Health, supra, 798 N.E.2d 941, appears to be 
the only one squarely to hold that a state constitution precludes the state from 
withholding the status of marriage from same-sex couples.   
 
In Baker v. State of Vermont, supra, 744 A.2d 864, the court summarized 
its conclusion under the “common benefits” clause of the Vermont Constitution, as 
follows: “The State is constitutionally required to extend to same-sex couples the 
common benefits and protections that flow from marriage under Vermont law.  
Whether this ultimately takes the form of inclusion within the marriage laws 
themselves or a parallel ‘domestic partnership’ system or some equivalent 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
55
number of other state and federal courts, however, have reached a contrary 
conclusion and have upheld the constitutional validity of such a restriction on 
marriage under both the federal Constitution and other state constitutions.  (See, 
e.g., Baker v. Nelson (Minn. 1971) 191 N.W.2d 185, 186-187, app. dism. for want 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
statutory alternative rests with the Legislature.”  (744 A.2d at p. 867; see also id. at 
pp. 886-887.)  The Vermont Legislature subsequently enacted a civil union statute.  
(Vt. Stat. Ann., tit. 15, §§ 1201-1207 (supp. 2001).) 
 
In Baehr v. Lewin, supra, 852 P.2d 44, the Hawaii Supreme Court held that 
the trial court in that case had erred in granting judgment on the pleadings against 
three same-sex couples who had sued for declaratory and injunctive relief after 
being denied marriage licenses, concluding that the plaintiffs were entitled to go 
forward with their action and that, under the equal protection clause of the Hawaii 
Constitution, the state would have to demonstrate a compelling interest to justify 
the statutory classification.  (852 P.2d at p. 68.)  Following the decision in Baehr, 
the voters in Hawaii amended the Hawaii Constitution to limit marriage to unions 
between a man and a woman, and, in light of that amendment, the Hawaii 
Supreme Court thereafter ordered entry of judgment in favor of the defendants in 
the Baehr litigation.  (See Baehr v. Miike (Haw. 1999) 994 P.2d 566 [full order 
reported at 1999 Haw.Lexis 391].) 
 
In addition to relying upon Goodridge, Baker, and Baehr, the city points to 
a passage in the dissenting opinion of Justice Scalia in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) 
539 U.S. 558, in which he expressed the view that the reasoning of the majority 
opinion in Lawrence  — holding a Texas sodomy statute unconstitutional — 
would lead to the conclusion that a statute precluding same-sex marriages also 
would be unconstitutional.  (Lawrence v. Texas, supra, 539 U.S. at pp. 604-605 
(dis. opn. by Scalia, J.)  The majority opinion in Lawrence, however, expressly 
stated that “[t]he present case . . . does not involve whether the government must 
give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to 
enter.”  (539 U.S. at p. 578).  In light of this very specific disclaimer in the 
majority opinion in Lawrence, we conclude that the city cannot plausibly claim 
that the Lawrence decision clearly establishes that a state statute limiting marriage 
to a man and a woman is unconstitutional under the federal Constitution.  (See 
also Standhardt v. Super. Ct. (Ariz.Ct.App. 2003) 77 P.2d 451, 454-460, 464-465 
[post-Lawrence case rejecting claim that Lawrence indicates the federal 
Constitution guarantees the right to same-sex marriage].)   
 
 
56
of substantial federal question (1972) 409 U.S. 810 [federal Constitution];33  
Standhardt v. Super. Ct., supra, 77 P.3d 451, 454-465 [federal and Arizona 
Constitutions]; Dean v. District of Columbia (D.C.Ct.App. 1995) 653 A.2d 307, 
361-364 (opns. by Terry, J. & Steadman, J. [federal Constitution]; Jones v. 
Hallahan (Ky.Ct.App. 1973) 501 S.W.2d 588, 590 [federal Constitution]; 
Singer v. Hara (Wash. Ct. App. 1974) 522 P.2d 1187, 1189-1197 [federal and 
Washington Constitutions]; Adams v. Howerton (C.D.Cal. 1980) 486 F.Supp. 
1119, 1124-1125, affd. (9th Cir. 1982) 673 F.2d 1036, cert. den. (1982) 458 U.S. 
1111 [federal Constitution].)  Although the state court decisions from 
Massachusetts, Vermont, and Hawaii relied upon by the city surely would be of 
interest to a California court faced with the question whether the current California 
marriage statutes violate the California Constitution, a California court would be 
                                             
 
33  
Petitioners in Lewis maintain that because the United States Supreme Court 
summarily dismissed the appeal in Baker v. Nelson for want of a substantial 
federal question and because such a summary dismissal is treated as a decision on 
the merits (see Mandel v. Bradley (1977) 432 U.S. 173, 176; Hicks v. Miranda 
(1975) 422 U.S. 332, 344), the summary dismissal in Baker v. Nelson definitively 
establishes that, under current federal law, a statute limiting marriage to a man and 
a woman does not violate the federal Constitution.  The city, on the other hand, 
cites a number of decisions stating that when there have been subsequent doctrinal 
developments in the United States Supreme Court that undermine the holding in a 
summary dismissal, the lower courts are not bound to follow the summary 
dismissal as controlling authority (see, e.g., Tenafly Eruv Ass’n v. Borough of 
Tenafly (3d Cir. 2002) 309 F.3d 144, 173, fn. 33; Lecates v. Justice of the Peace 
Court No. 4 of Delaware (3d Cir. 1980) 637 F.2d 898, 904), and the city argues 
that there have been such doctrinal developments in subsequent high court 
decisions that undermine the holding in Baker v. Nelson.  We find no need to 
resolve this dispute here, because whatever the current effect of the summary 
dismissal in Baker v. Nelson, the case before us clearly does not present an 
instance in which the invalidity of the current California marriage statutes is so 
patent or clearly established that no reasonable official could believe that the 
statutes are constitutional. 
 
 
57
equally interested in the decisions of the courts that have reached a contrary 
conclusion (and in the reasoning of the minority opinions in the state court 
decisions relied upon by the city (see Goodridge v. Department of Pub. Health, 
supra, 798 N.E.2d 941, 974-1105 (dis. opns. by Spina, J., Sosman, J., & Cordy, 
J.); Baehr v. Lewin, supra, 852 P.2d 44, 70-73 (dis. opn. by Heen, J.)).  In light of 
the absence of any California authority directly on point and the sharp division of 
judicial views expressed in the out-of-state decisions that have considered similar 
constitutional challenges, this plainly is not an instance in which the invalidity of 
the California marriage statutes is so patent or clearly established that no 
reasonable official could believe that the statutes are constitutional.  Therefore, 
this case does not fall within any narrow exception that may apply to instances in 
which it would be absurd or unreasonable to require a public official to comply 
with a statute that any reasonable official would conclude is unconstitutional. 
H 
 
Accordingly, we conclude that, under California law, the city officials had 
no authority to refuse to perform their ministerial duty in conformity with the 
current California marriage statutes on the basis of their view that the statutory 
limitation of marriage to a couple comprised of a man and a woman is 
unconstitutional. 
It is worth noting that the California rule generally precluding an executive 
official from refusing to perform a ministerial duty imposed by statute on the basis 
of the official’s determination or opinion that the statute is unconstitutional is 
consistent with the general rule applied in the overwhelming majority of cases 
from other jurisdictions.  (See generally Annot., Unconstitutionality of Statute as 
Defense to Mandamus Proceeding (1924) 30 A.L.R.. 378, 379 [“[t]he weight of 
authority [holds] that a public officer whose duties are of a ministerial character 
cannot question the constitutionality of a statute as a defense to a mandamus 
 
 
58
proceeding to compel him to perform some official duty, where in the 
performance of such duty his personal interests or rights will not be affected, and 
he will not incur any personal liability, or violate his oath of office”]; Annot. 
(1940) 129 A.L.R. 941 [supplementing 30 A.L.R. 378]; see also Note (1928) 42 
Harv. L.Rev. 1071.)34   
                                             
 
34  
Our review of the decisions of our sister states and the District of Columbia 
reflects that of the 33 jurisdictions in which decisions have been found addressing 
this subject, 26 appear to have recognized and endorsed the proposition that, as a 
general rule, an executive official who is charged with a ministerial duty to 
enforce a statute has no authority to refuse to apply the statute, in the absence of a 
judicial determination that the statute is unconstitutional, on the ground that the 
official believes the statute is unconstitutional, although many of the jurisdictions, 
like California, also recognize an exception for bond or other public finance cases, 
in which an official is permitted to refuse to apply a statute as a means of 
obtaining a timely judicial determination of the legality of the bond or public 
expenditure.  (See Denver Urban Renewal Authority v. Byrne (Colo. 1980) 618 
P.2d 1374, 1379-1380 [foll. Ames v. People (Colo. 1899) 56 P. 656, 658]; Levitt v. 
Attorney General (Conn. 1930) 151 A. 171, 176; Panitz v. District of Columbia 
(D.C.Cir. 1940) 112 F.2d 39, 41-42 [applying District of Columbia law]; Fuchs v. 
Robbins (Fla. 2002) 818 So.2d 460, 463-464 [foll. State v. State Board of 
Equalizers, supra, 94 So. 681, 682-684]; Taylor v. State (Ga. 1931) 162 S.E. 504, 
508-509; Howell v. Board of Comm’rs (Idaho 1898) 53 P. 542, 543; People ex rel. 
Atty. Gen. v. Salomon (1870) 54 Ill. 39, 44-46; Bd. of Sup’rs of Linn Cty. v. Dept. 
of Revenue (Iowa 1978) 263 N.W.2d 227, 232-234 [foll. Charles Hewitt & Sons 
Co. v. Keller (Iowa 1937) 275 N.W. 94, 95-97]; Tincher v. Commonwealth (Ky. 
1925) 271 S.W. 1066, 1068; Dore v. Tugwell (La. 1955) 84 So.2d 199, 201-202 
[foll. State v. Heard (La. 1895) 18 So. 746, 749-752]; Smyth v. Titcomb (1850) 31 
Me. 272, 285; Maryland Classified Emp. Ass’n v. Anderson (Md. 1977) 380 A.2d 
1032, 1035-1037; Assessors of Haverhill v. New England Tel. & Tel. Co. (Mass. 
1955) 124 N.E.2d 917, 920-921; State v. Steele County Bd. of Com’rs (Minn. 
1930) 232 N.W. 737, 738-739; St. Louis County v. Litzinger (Mo. 1963) 372 
S.W.2d 880, 881-882 [foll. State v. Becker (Mo. 1931) 41 S.W.2d 188, 190-191]; 
State v. McFarlan (Mont. 1927) 252 P. 805, 808; State v. Sedillo (N.M. 1929) 275 
P. 765, 765-767; Attorney General v. Taubenheimer (1917) 178 App.Div. 321, 
321 [164 N.Y.Supp. 904, 904]; Dept. of State Highways v. Baker (N.D. 1940) 290 
N.W. 258, 260-262; State v. Griffith (Ohio 1940) 25 N.E.2d 847, 848-849; State ex 
rel. Cruce v. Cease (Okla. 1911) 114 P. 251, 252-253; Commonwealth v. Mathues 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
59
Although there are numerous out-of-state cases that address this issue, one 
of the most quoted decisions is State v. Heard, supra, 18 So. 746, 752, where the 
court, after an extensive review of the then existing authorities from various 
jurisdictions, concluded:  “[E]xecutive officers of the State government have no 
authority to decline the performance of purely ministerial duties which are 
imposed upon them by a law, on the ground that it contravenes the Constitution.  
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
(Pa. 1904) 59 A. 961, 964-969; State v. Burley (S.C. 1908) 61 S.E. 255, 257; 
Thoreson v. State Board of Examiners (Utah 1899) 57 P. 175, 177-179; City of 
Montpelier v. Gates (Vt. 1934) 170 A. 473, 476-477; Capito v. Topping (W.Va. 
1909) 64 S.E. 845, 846; Riverton v. Valley D. Dist. v. Board of County Com’rs 
(Wyo. 1937) 74 P.2d 871, 873.)   
 
Of the seven states that may be viewed as adopting the minority position, 
most have addressed the issue only in the context of actions either relating to 
matters affecting the expenditure of public funds or where the rights or interests of 
the public officer or public entity were directly at stake.  (See State v. Steinwedel 
(Ind. 1932) 180 N.E. 865, 866-868 [public expenditure]; Toombs v. Sharkey (Miss. 
1925) 106 So. 273, 277 [public expenditure]; Van Horn v. State (Neb. 1895) 64 
N.W. 365, 371-372 [county reorganization]; State v. Slusher (Or. 1926) 248 
P. 358, 359-360 [tax collection]; Holman v. Pabst (Tex. 1930) 27 S.W.2d 340, 
342-343 [local election procedure]; Hindman v. Boyd (Wash. 1906) 84 P. 609, 612 
[local election procedure]; State v. Tappan (Wis. 1872) 9 Am. Rep. 622, 635 [tax 
collection].) 
 
A number of the out-of-state cases discuss a separate line of cases that 
address the issue whether a public official or public entity has “standing” to bring 
a court action — for example, a declaratory judgment action — challenging the 
constitutionality of a statute the official or entity is obligated to comply with or 
enforce.  (See, e.g., Fuchs v. Robbins, supra, 818 So.2d 460, 463-464; Bd. of 
Sup’rs of Linn Cty v. Dept. of Revenue, supra, 263 N.W.2d 227, 233-234; see also 
City of Kenosha (Wis. 1967) 151 N.W.2d 36, 42-43.)  Although the standing issue 
involves some of the same considerations that are applicable to the issue we face 
here, from a separation of powers perspective, conduct by an executive official 
that simply asks a court to determine the constitutionality of a statute would 
appear to raise much less concern than an executive official’s unilateral refusal to 
enforce a statute based on the official’s opinion that the statute is unconstitutional. 
 
 
60
Laws are presumed to be, and must be treated and acted upon by subordinate 
executive functionaries as constitutional and legal, until their unconstitutionality or 
illegality has been judicially established, for, in all well regulated government, 
obedience to its laws by executive officers is absolutely essential, and of 
paramount importance.  Were it not so the most inextricable confusion would 
inevitably result, and ‘produce such collisions in the administration of public 
affairs as to materially impede the proper and necessary operations of the 
government.’  ‘It was surely never intended that an executive functionary should 
nullify a law by neglecting or refusing to execute it.’ ”  (See also Department of 
State Highways v. Baker, supra, 290 N.W. 257, 259 [“There is no question as to 
the general rule that a subordinate ministerial officer to whom no injury can result 
and to whom no violation of duty can be imputed by reason of compliance with 
the statute may not question the constitutionality of the statute imposing such 
duty.”]; State v. Becker, supra, 41 S.W.2d 188, 190 [“It is well settled in this state 
and in a great majority of our sister states that, as a general rule, a ministerial 
officer cannot defend his refusal to perform a duty prescribed by a statute on the 
ground that such statute is unconstitutional.”]; State v. Steele County Board of 
Com’rs, supra, 232 N.W. 737, 738 [“[Although] [t]he authorities are in conflict[,] 
[t]he better doctrine, supported by the weight of authority, is that an official so 
charged with the performance of a ministerial duty will not be allowed to question 
the constitutionality of such a law. . . .  Officials acting ministerially are not 
clothed with judicial authority. . . .  Their authority is the command of the statute, 
and it is the limit of their power.”]; State v. State Board of Equalizers, supra, 94 
So. 681, 683 [“It is contended that an individual may refuse to obey a law that he 
believes to be unconstitutional, and take a chance on its fate in the courts.  He does 
this, however, ‘at his peril’; the ‘peril’ being to suffer the consequences, such as 
fine or imprisonment, or both, if the courts should hold the act to be constitutional.  
 
 
61
[¶]  A ministerial officer refusing to enforce a law because in his opinion it is 
unconstitutional takes no such risk.  He does nothing ‘at his peril,’ because he 
subjects himself to no penalty if his opinion as to the unconstitutionality of an act 
is not sustained by the courts.  [¶]  It is the doctrine of nullification, pure and 
simple, and whatever may have been said of the soundness of that doctrine when 
sought to be applied by states to acts of Congress, the most ardent followers of Mr. 
Calhoun never extended it to give to ministerial officers the right and power to 
nullify a legislative enactment.”  (Italics added.)].) 
I 
In addition to the California decisions reviewed above and the weight of 
judicial authority from other jurisdictions, consideration of the practical 
consequences of a contrary rule further demonstrates the unsoundness of the city’s 
position. 
To begin with, most local executive officials have no legal training and thus 
lack the relevant expertise to make constitutional determinations.  Although every 
individual (lawyer or nonlawyer) is, of course, free to form his or her own opinion 
of what the Constitution means and how it should be interpreted and applied, a 
local executive official has no authority to impose his or her personal view on 
others by refusing to comply with a ministerial duty imposed by statute.  (See, 
e.g., Southern Pacific, supra, 18 Cal.3d 308, 321 (conc. & dis. opn. of Mosk, J.) 
[“Certainly attorneys have no monopoly on wisdom, but a person trained for three 
or more years in a college of law and then tempered with at least a decade of 
experience within the judicial system is likely to be far better equipped to make 
 
 
62
difficult constitutional judgments than a lay administrator with no background in 
the law.”].)35   
Second, if, as the city maintains, a local official were to possess the 
authority to act on the basis of his or her own constitutional determination, such an 
official generally would arrive at that determination without affording the affected 
individuals any due process safeguards and, in particular, without providing any 
opportunity for those supporting the constitutionality of the statutes to be heard.  
In its opposition to the initial petition filed in this case, the city urged this court not 
to immediately accept jurisdiction over the substantive question of the 
constitutionality of California’s marriage laws at this time, because that question 
properly could be determined only after a full presentation of evidence before a 
trial court.  The city officials themselves, however, made their own constitutional 
                                             
 
35  
Several amici curiae point out that nonattorney public officials are able to 
seek legal advice from a county counsel or city attorney (see Gov. Code, 
§§ 27640, 41801) and assert that such nonattorney officials presumably will do so 
before disobeying a statute on the ground it is unconstitutional.  County counsel 
and city attorneys, however, also are executive officers who, like a nonattorney 
public official, have not been granted judicial power and thus also lack the 
authority to determine that a statute is unconstitutional and that it should not be 
followed.  A nonattorney public official generally will be in no position to 
critically evaluate legal advice obtained from such counsel regarding the question 
of a statute’s constitutionality.  Outside the very narrow category of instances in 
which legal counsel can advise that the invalidity of the statute is so patent or 
clearly established that any reasonable public official would conclude that the 
statute in question is unconstitutional (see, ante, pp. 53-57), whenever a 
nonattorney official defies a statutory mandate on the basis of a county counsel’s 
or city attorney’s legal advice, the official’s refusal to apply the statute actually 
will rest upon legal counsel’s judgment on a debatable constitutional question, 
rather than upon the judgment of the official on whom the statute imposes a 
ministerial duty.  Furthermore, a nonattorney official is under no obligation to act 
in accordance with a legal opinion (often given confidentially) provided by a 
county counsel or city attorney.   
 
 
63
determination without conducting any such evidentiary hearing or taking other 
measures designed to protect the rights of those who maintain that the statute is 
constitutional.  Thus, despite the settled rule that a duly enacted statute is 
presumed to be constitutional, under the city’s proposed rule a local executive 
official would be free to determine that a statute is unconstitutional and refuse to 
enforce it, without providing even the most rudimentary of due process 
procedures — notice and an opportunity to be heard — to anyone directly affected 
by the official’s action. 
Third, there are thousands of elected and appointed public officials in 
California’s 58 counties charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing thousands 
of state statutes.  If each official were empowered to decide whether or not to carry 
out each ministerial act based upon the official’s own personal judgment of the 
constitutionality of an underlying statute, the enforcement of statutes would 
become haphazard, leading to confusion and chaos and thwarting the uniform 
statewide treatment that state statutes generally are intended to provide.  (Cf. 
Haring v. Blumenthal, supra, 471 F.Supp. 1172, 1178-1179 [“Unless and until the 
Congress, or a court of competent jurisdiction . . . , determines that a particular tax 
exemption ruling is invalid, the employees of the [Internal Revenue] Service . . . 
are obliged to implement that ruling.  Not merely the concept of a uniform tax 
policy but the effectiveness of the government of the United States as a 
functioning entity would be in jeopardy if each employee could take it upon 
himself to decide which particular laws, regulations, and policies are legal or 
illegal, and to base his official actions upon that private determination.”].)  
Although in the past the multiplicity of public officials performing similar 
ministerial acts under a single statute never has posed a problem in this regard, 
that is undoubtedly true only because most officials never imagined they had the 
authority to determine the constitutionality of a statute that they have a ministerial 
 
 
64
duty to enforce.  Were we to hold that such officials possess this authority, it is not 
difficult to anticipate that private individuals who oppose enforcement of a statute 
and question its constitutionality would attempt to influence ministerial officials in 
various locales to exercise  on behalf of such opponents  the officials’ newly 
recognized authority.  The circumstance that many local officials have no legal 
training would only exacerbate the problem.  As a consequence, the uneven 
enforcement of statutory mandates in different local jurisdictions likely would 
become a significant concern. 
Fourth, the confused state of affairs arising from diverse actions by a 
multiplicity of local officials frequently would continue for a considerable period 
of time, because under the city’s proposed rule a court generally could not order a 
public official to comply with the challenged statute until the court actually had 
determined that it was constitutional.  In view of the many instances in which a 
constitutional challenge to a statute entails lengthy litigation, the lack of uniform 
treatment afforded to similarly situated citizens throughout the state often would 
be a long-term phenomenon. 
These practical considerations simply confirm the soundness of the 
established rule that an executive official generally does not have the authority to 
refuse to comply with a ministerial duty imposed by statute on the basis of the 
official’s opinion that the statute is unconstitutional.36 
                                             
 
36  
Despite the suggestion in Justice Werdegar’s concurring and dissenting 
opinion (post, at pp. 6-10), this established rule does not represent any sort of 
broad claim of judicial power over the executive branch, but on the contrary 
reflects the general duty of an executive official, in carrying out a ministerial 
function authorized by statute, not to assume the authority to supersede or 
contravene the directions of the legislative branch or to exercise the traditional 
function of the judicial branch. 
 
 
65
V 
The city further claims, however, that even if California law does not 
recognize the authority of a local official to refuse to comply with a statutorily 
mandated ministerial duty absent a judicial determination that the statute is 
unconstitutional, under the federal supremacy clause (U.S. Const., art. VI, § 2) 
California lacks the power to require a public official to comply with a state statute 
that the official believes violates the federal Constitution.  Although in the present 
case the mayor’s initial letter to the county clerk relied solely upon the asserted 
unconstitutionality of the California marriage statutes under the California 
Constitution, the city, in the opposition filed in this court, for the first time 
advanced the position that the action taken by the city officials was based, at least 
in part, on their belief that the California statutes violate the federal Constitution, 
and the city now rests its supremacy clause claim on this newly asserted belief.  
Putting aside the question of the bona fides of this belatedly proffered rationale, 
we conclude that, in any event, the federal supremacy clause provides no support 
for the city’s argument. 
To begin with, the principal cases upon which the city relies — Ex Parte 
Young (1908) 209 U.S. 123 and LSO, Ltd. v. Stroh, supra, 205 F.3d 1146 — are 
readily distinguishable from the present case.  Those cases stand only for the 
proposition that the circumstance that a state official is acting pursuant to the 
provisions of an applicable state statute does not necessarily shield the official (or 
the public entity on whose behalf the official acts) either from an injunction or a 
monetary judgment issued by a federal court, where the federal court subsequently 
determines that the state statute violates the federal Constitution.37  The city has 
                                             
 
37  
As explained above (ante, pp. 46-48), under the circumstances in this case 
there is no plausible basis for suggesting that the city officials would have 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
66
not cited any case holding that the federal Constitution prohibits a state from 
defining the authority of a state’s executive officials in a manner that requires such 
officials to comply with a clearly applicable statute unless and until such a statute 
is judicially determined to be unconstitutional, nor any case holding that the 
federal Constitution compels a state to permit every executive official, state or 
local, to refuse to enforce an applicable statutory provision whenever the official 
personally believes the statute violates the federal Constitution. 
Furthermore, numerous pronouncements by the United States Supreme 
Court directly refute the city’s contention that the supremacy clause or any other 
provision of the federal Constitution embodies such a principle.  To begin with, 
the high court’s position on the proper role of federal executive officials with 
regard to constitutional determinations is instructive.  In Davies Warehouse Co. v. 
Bowles (1944) 321 U.S. 144, 152-153, for example, in response to the plaintiff’s 
contention that under one proposed reading of the applicable statute “the [federal 
Price] Administrator [an executive official] would have to decide whether the state 
regulation is constitutional before he should recognize it,” the United States 
Supreme Court stated: “We cannot give weight to this view of [the Price 
Administrator’s] functions, which we think it unduly magnifies.  State statutes, 
like federal ones, are entitled to the presumption of constitutionality until their 
invalidity is judicially declared.  Certainly no power to adjudicate constitutional 
issues is conferred on the Administrator. . . . We think the Administrator will not 
be remiss in his duties if he assumes the constitutionality of state regulatory 
statutes, under both state and federal constitutions, in the absence of a contrary 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
subjected themselves to personal liability had they acted in conformity with the 
terms of the current California marriage statutes.   
 
 
67
judicial determination.”  (Italics added; see also Weinberger v. Salfi (1975) 422 
U.S. 749, 765 [“[T]he constitutionality of a statutory requirement [is] a matter 
which is beyond [the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare’s] jurisdiction 
to determine”]; Johnson v. Robison (1974) 415 U.S. 361, 368 [“[a]djudication of 
the constitutionality of congressional amendments has generally been thought 
beyond the jurisdiction of administrative agencies”]; Oestereich v. Selective 
Service Board (1968) 393 U.S. 233, 242 (conc. opn. of Harlan, J.) [same]; cf. 
Thunder Basin Coast Co. v. Reich (1994) 510 U.S. 200, 215.)  In light of the high 
court’s repeated statements that federal executive officials generally lack authority 
to determine the constitutionality of statutes, the city’s claim that the federal 
supremacy clause itself grants a state or local official the authority to refuse to 
enforce a statute that the official believes is unconstitutional is plainly untenable. 
 
Furthermore, there are several earlier United States Supreme Court cases 
that even more directly refute the city’s contention.  Smith v. Indiana (1903) 191 
U.S. 138 was a case, arising from the Indiana state courts, in which a county 
auditor had refused to grant a statutorily authorized exemption to a taxpayer 
because the auditor believed the exemption violated the federal Constitution.  A 
mandate action was filed against the auditor, and the state courts permitted the 
auditor to raise and litigate the asserted unconstitutionality of the statute as a 
defense in the mandate action, ultimately determining that the exemption was 
constitutionally permissible and directing the auditor to grant the exemption.  The 
auditor appealed the state court decision upholding the constitutionality of the 
state statute to the United States Supreme Court. 
In its opinion in Smith, the high court observed that “there are many 
authorities to the effect that a ministerial officer, charged by law with the duty of 
enforcing a certain statute, cannot refuse to perform his plain duty thereunder upon 
the ground that in his opinion it is repugnant to the Constitution” (Smith v. 
 
 
68
Indiana, supra, 191 U.S. at p. 148), but it recognized that a state court “has the 
power . . . to assume jurisdiction in such a case if it chooses to do so.”  (Ibid.)  At 
the same time, however, the court in Smith stated explicitly that “the power of a 
public officer to question the constitutionality of a statute as an excuse for refusing 
to enforce it . . . is a purely local question” (ibid., italics added) — that is, purely a 
question of state (not federal) law — a conclusion that directly refutes the city’s 
claim that federal law requires a state to recognize the authority of a ministerial 
official to refuse to comply with a statute whenever the official believes it violates 
the federal Constitution.  Moreover, in Smith itself the United States Supreme 
Court went on to hold that although the state court in that case had permitted the 
auditor to litigate the constitutionality of the state statute, the auditor did not have 
a sufficient personal interest in the litigation to support jurisdiction in the United 
States Supreme Court; thus the high court dismissed the auditor’s appeal without 
reaching the question of the constitutionality of the underlying statute.38  A few 
years later, the high court followed its decision in Smith, dismissing a similar 
appeal by a state auditor in Braxton County Court v. West Virginia (1908) 208 
U.S. 192, 197. 
In light of the foregoing high court decisions, we conclude that the 
California rule set forth above does not conflict with any federal constitutional 
requirement.   
                                             
 
38  
The court in Smith explained in this regard:  “It is evident that the auditor 
had no personal interest in the litigation.  He had certain duties as a public officer 
to perform.  The performance of those duties was of no personal benefit to him.  
Their non-performance was equally so. . . .  He was testing the constitutionality of 
the law purely in the interest of third persons, viz., the taxpayers . . . .”  (Smith v. 
Indiana, supra, 191 U.S. at pp. 148-149.)   
 
 
69
VI 
The city contends, however, that even if we conclude that its officials 
lacked the authority to refuse to enforce the marriage statutes, we still cannot issue 
the writ of mandate sought by petitioners without first determining whether 
California’s current marriage statutes are constitutional, in light of the general 
proposition that courts will not issue a writ of mandate to require a public official 
to perform an unconstitutional act.  As the Florida Supreme Court explained in a 
similar context, however, “[i]t is no answer to say that the courts will not require a 
ministerial officer to perform an unconstitutional act.  That aspect of the case is 
not before us.  We must first determine the power of the ministerial officer to 
refuse to perform a statutory duty because in his opinion the law is 
unconstitutional.  When we decide that, we do not get to the question of the 
constitutionality of the act, and it will not be decided.”  (State v. State Board of 
Equalizers, supra, 94 So. 681, 684.)  Accordingly, because we have concluded 
that the city officials have no authority to refuse to apply the current marriage 
statutes in the absence of a judicial determination that these statutes are 
unconstitutional, we conclude that the requested writ of mandate should issue.   
VII 
Finally, we must determine the appropriate scope of the relief to be ordered.  
As a general matter, the nature of the relief warranted in a mandate action is 
dependent upon the circumstances of the particular case, and a court is not 
necessarily limited by the prayer sought in the mandate petition but may grant the 
relief it deems appropriate.  (See Johnson v. Fontana County F.P. Dist. (1940) 15 
Cal.2d 380, 391-392; George M. v. Superior Court (1988) 201 Cal.App.3d 755, 
760; Sacramento City Police Dept. v. Superior Court (1984) 156 Cal.App.3d 
1193, 1197, fn. 5.) 
 
 
70
In the present case, we are faced with an unusual, perhaps unprecedented, 
set of circumstances.  Here, local public officials have purported to authorize, 
perform, and register literally thousands of marriages in direct violation of explicit 
state statutes. The Attorney General, as well as a number of local taxpayers, have 
filed these original mandate proceedings in this court to halt the local officials’ 
unauthorized conduct and to compel these officials to correct or undo the 
numerous unlawful actions they have taken in the immediate past.  As explained 
above, we have determined that the city officials exceeded their authority in 
issuing marriage licenses to, solemnizing marriages of, and registering marriage 
certificates on behalf of, same-sex couples.  Under these circumstances, we 
conclude that it is appropriate in this mandate proceeding not only to order the city 
officials to comply with the applicable statutes in the future, but also to direct the 
officials to take all necessary steps to remedy the continuing effect of their past 
unlawful actions, including correction of all relevant official records and 
notification of affected individuals of the invalidity of the officials’ actions.   
In light of the clear terms of Family Code section 300 defining marriage as 
a “personal relationship arising out of a civil contract between a man and a 
woman” and the legislative history of this provision demonstrating that the 
purpose of this limitation was to “prohibit persons of the same sex from entering 
lawful marriage” (Sen. Com. on Judiciary, Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 607 (1977-
1978 Reg. Sess.) as amended May 23, 1977, p. 1 [discussed, ante, p. 15, fn. 11]), 
we believe it plainly follows that all same-sex marriages authorized, solemnized, 
or registered by the city officials must be considered void and of no legal effect 
from their inception.  Although this precise issue has not previously been 
presented under California law, every court that has considered the question has 
determined that when state law limits marriage to a union between a man and a 
woman, a same-sex marriage performed in violation of state law is void and of no 
 
 
71
legal effect.  (See, e.g., Jones v. Hallahan, supra, 501 S.W.2d 588, 589 [same-sex 
marriage “would not constitute a marriage” under Kentucky law]; Anonymous v. 
Anonymous (N.Y. Sup.Ct. 1971) 325 N.Y.S.2d 499, 501 [under New York law, 
same-sex “marriage ceremony was a nullity” and “no legal relationship could be 
created by it”]; McConnell v. Nooner (8th Cir. 1976) 547 F.2d 54, 55-56 
[“purported” same-sex marriage of no legal effect under Minnesota law]; Adams v. 
Howerton, supra, 486 F.Supp. 1119, 1122 [purported same-sex marriage has “no 
legal effect” under Colorado or federal law].)  The city has not cited any case in 
which a same-sex marriage, performed in contravention of a state statute that bans 
such marriages and that has not judicially been held unconstitutional, has been 
given any legal effect.   
The city and several amici curiae representing same-sex couples who 
obtained marriage licenses from city officials  and had certificates of registry of 
marriage registered by such officials  raise a number of objections to our 
determining that the same-sex marriages that have been performed in California 
are void and of no legal effect, but we conclude that none of these objections is 
meritorious.   
First, the city and amici curiae contend that the Attorney General and the 
petitioners in Lewis lack standing to challenge the validity of the same-sex 
marriages that already have been performed, relying upon the provisions of Family 
Code section 2211, which sets forth the categories of individuals who may bring 
an action to nullify a “voidable” marriage — categories that generally are limited 
to one of the parties to the marriage or, where a party to the marriage is a minor or 
a person incapable of giving legal consent, the parent, guardian, or conservator of 
such party.  Past California decisions, however, make clear that the procedural 
requirements generally applicable in an action to nullify or annul a “voidable” 
marriage are inapplicable when a purported marriage is void from the beginning or 
 
 
72
is a legal nullity.  As this court stated in Estate of Gregorson (1911) 160 Cal. 21, 
26:  “A marriage prohibited as incestuous or illegal and declared to be ‘void’ or 
‘void from the beginning’ is a legal nullity and its validity may be asserted or 
shown in any proceeding in which the fact of marriage may be material.”  (Italics 
added.)  In our view, the present mandate action, which seeks to compel public 
officials to correct the effects of their unauthorized official conduct in issuing 
marriage licenses to or registering marriage certificates of thousands of same-sex 
couples, is such a proceeding, because the validity or invalidity of the same-sex 
marriages authorized and registered by such officials is central to the scope of the 
remedy that may and should be ordered in this case.39   
The city and amici curiae additionally contend that we cannot properly 
determine the validity or invalidity of the existing same-sex marriages in this 
proceeding because the parties to a marriage are indispensable parties to any legal 
action seeking to invalidate a marriage, and the thousands of same-sex couples 
whose marriages were authorized and registered by the local authorities are not 
formal parties to the present mandate proceeding.  The city relies on cases 
involving actions that have been brought to annul a particular marriage on the 
basis of facts peculiar to that marriage, in which the courts have held the parties to 
the marriage to be indispensable parties.  (See, e.g., McClure v. Donovan (1949) 
33 Cal.2d 717, 725.)  In the present instance, by contrast, the question of the 
                                             
 
39  
Contrary to the assertion of Justice Werdegar’s concurring and dissenting 
opinion (post, at p. 5), the validity or invalidity of the existing same-sex marriages 
is material to this case not simply because the Attorney General has requested this 
court to decide that issue, but because resolution of the issue is necessary in 
determining the scope of the remedy that properly should be ordered in this 
mandate action to correct, and undo the potentially disruptive consequences of, the 
unauthorized actions of the city officials. 
 
 
73
validity or invalidity of a same-sex marriage does not depend upon any facts that 
are peculiar to any individual same-sex marriage, but rather is a purely legal 
question applicable to all existing same-sex marriages, and rests on the 
circumstance that the governing state statute limits marriage to a union between a 
man and a woman.  Under ordinary principles of stare decisis, an appellate 
decision holding that, under current California statutes, a same-sex marriage 
performed in California is void from its inception effectively would resolve that 
legal issue with respect to all couples who had participated in same-sex marriages, 
even though such couples had not been parties to the original action.  Because the 
validity or invalidity of same-sex marriages under current California law involves 
only a pure question of law, couples who are not formal parties to this action are in 
no different position than if this question of law had been presented and resolved 
in an action involving some other same-sex couple rather than in an action in 
which the legal arguments regarding the validity of such marriages have been 
vigorously asserted not only by the city officials who authorized and registered 
such marriages but also by various amici curiae representing similarly situated 
same-sex couples.  Requiring a separate legal proceeding to be brought to 
invalidate each of the thousands of same-sex marriages, or requiring each of the 
thousands of same-sex couples to be named and served as parties in the present 
action, would add nothing of substance to this proceeding.   
The city and amici curiae further contend that it would violate the due 
process rights of the same-sex couples who obtained marriage licenses and had 
their marriage certificates registered by the local officials for this court to 
determine the validity of same-sex marriages without giving the couples notice 
and an opportunity to be heard.  To begin with, there may be some question 
whether an individual who, through the deliberate unauthorized conduct of a 
public official, obtains a license, permit, or other status that clearly is not 
 
 
74
authorized by state law, possesses a constitutionally protected property or liberty 
interest that gives rise to procedural due process guarantees.  (Cf., e.g., Snyder v. 
City of Minneapolis (Minn. 1989) 441 N.W.2d 781, 792; Mellin v. Flood Brook 
Union School Dist. (Vt. 2001) 790 A.2d 408, 421; Gunkel v. City of Emporia, 
Kan. (10th Cir. 1987) 835 F.2d 1302, 1304-1305 & fns. 7, 8.)  In any event, these 
same-sex couples have not been denied the right to meaningfully participate in 
these proceedings.  Although we have not permitted them to intervene formally in 
these actions as parties, our order denying intervention to a number of such 
couples explicitly was without prejudice to participation as amicus curiae, and 
numerous amicus curiae briefs have been filed on behalf of such couples directly 
addressing the question of the validity of the existing same-sex marriages.  
Accordingly, the legal arguments of such couples with regard to the question of 
the validity of the existing same-sex marriages have been heard and fully 
considered.  Furthermore, under the procedure we adopt below (see, post, p. 78), 
before the city takes corrective action with regard to the record of any particular 
same-sex marriage license or same-sex marriage certificate, each affected couple 
will receive individual notice and an opportunity to show that the holding of the 
present opinion is not applicable to the couple.   
The city and amici curiae next maintain that even if this court properly may 
address the validity of the existing same-sex marriages in this proceeding, under 
California law such marriages cannot be held void (or voidable, for that matter), 
because there is no California statute that explicitly provides that a marriage 
between two persons of the same sex or gender is void (or voidable).  As we have 
seen, however, Family Code section 300 explicitly defines marriage as “a personal 
relation arising out of a civil contract between a man and a woman,” and in view 
of the language and legislative history of this provision (see, ante, p. 15, fn. 11), 
we believe that the Legislature has made clear its intent that a same-sex marriage 
 
 
75
performed in California is not a valid marriage under California law.  Accordingly, 
we view Family Code section 300 itself as an explicit statutory provision 
establishing that the existing same-sex marriages at issue are void and invalid.   
The city and amici curiae also rely upon Family Code section 306, which 
provides in part that “[n]oncompliance with this part by a nonparty to the marriage 
does not invalidate the marriage,” maintaining that this statute demonstrates that 
even if the county clerk erred in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, 
such noncompliance by the county clerk (a nonparty to the marriage) does not 
invalidate the marriage.  In our view, section 306 — which is unofficially entitled 
“Procedural requirements; effect of noncompliance” — has no application here.  
The defect at issue clearly is not simply a procedural defect in the issuance of the 
license or in the solemnization or registration process.  Indeed, it is not simply the 
invalidity or unauthorized nature of the county clerk’s action in issuing a marriage 
license to a same-sex couple that renders void any marriage between a same-sex 
couple.  What renders such a purported marriage void is the circumstance that the 
current California statutes reflect a clear legislative decision to “prohibit persons 
of the same sex from entering lawful marriage.”  (Sen. Com. on Judiciary, 
Analysis of Assem. Bill No. 607 (1977-1978 Reg. Sess.) as amended May 23, 
1977, discussed, ante, at p. 15, fn. 11.)  It is that substantive legislative limitation 
on the institution of marriage, and not simply the circumstance that the actions of 
the county clerk or county recorder were unauthorized, that renders the existing 
same-sex marriages invalid and void from the beginning.   
Finally, the city urges this court to postpone the determination of the 
validity of the same-sex marriages that already have been performed and 
registered until a court rules on the substantive constitutional challenges to the 
California marriage statutes that are now pending in superior court.  From a 
practical perspective, we believe it would not be prudent or wise to leave the 
 
 
76
validity of these marriages in limbo for what might be a substantial period of time 
given the potential confusion (for third parties, such as employers, insurers, or 
other governmental entities, as well as for the affected couples) that such an 
uncertain status inevitably would entail.40   
In any event, we believe such a delay in decision is unwarranted on more 
fundamental grounds.  As we have explained, because Family Code section 300 
clearly limits marriage in California to a marriage between a man and a woman 
and flatly prohibits persons of the same sex from lawfully marrying in California, 
the governing authorities establish that the same-sex marriages that already have 
been performed are void and of no legal effect from their inception.  (See, ante, 
p. 70 and cases cited; see also Estate of Gregorson, supra, 160 Cal. 21, 26 [“A 
marriage prohibited as . . . illegal and declared to be ‘void’ or ‘void from the 
beginning’ is a legal nullity . . . .”].)  In view of this well-established rule, we do 
not believe it would be responsible or appropriate for this court to fail at this time 
to inform the parties to the same-sex marriages and other persons whose legal 
rights and responsibilities may depend upon the validity or invalidity of these 
marriages that these marriages are invalid, notwithstanding the pendency of 
numerous lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of California’s marriage 
statutes.  Withholding or delaying a ruling on the current validity of the existing 
same-sex marriages might lead numerous persons to make fundamental changes in 
their lives or otherwise proceed on the basis of erroneous expectations, creating 
potentially irreparable harm.   
                                             
 
40  
Whether or not any same-sex couple “has filed a lawsuit seeking the legal 
benefits of their purported marriage” (conc. & dis. opn. of Werdegar, J., post, at 
p. 2), there can be no question that the legal status of such couples has and will 
continue to generate numerous questions for such couples and third parties that 
must be resolved on an on-going basis. 
 
 
77
Although the city and the amici curiae representing same-sex couples 
suggest that these couples would prefer to live with uncertainty rather than be told 
at this point that the marriages are invalid, in light of the explicit terms of Family 
Code section 300 and the warning included in the same-sex marriage license 
applications provided by the city (see, ante, p. 8, fn. 5) these couples clearly were 
on notice that the validity of their marriages was dependent upon whether a court 
would find that the city officials had authority to allow same-sex marriages.  Now 
that we have confirmed that the city officials lack this authority, we do not believe 
that these couples have a persuasive equitable claim to have the validity of the 
marriages left in doubt at this point in time, creating uncertainty and potential 
harm to others who may need to know whether the marriages are valid or not.  
Had the current constitutional challenges to the California marriage statutes 
followed the traditional and proper course (see, ante, pp. 49-50), no same-sex 
marriage would have been conducted in California prior to a judicial 
determination that the current California marriage statutes are unconstitutional.  
Accordingly, as part of the remedy for the city officials’ unauthorized and 
unlawful actions, we believe it is appropriate to make clear that the same-sex 
marriages that already have purportedly come into being must be considered void 
from their inception.  Of course, should the current California statutes limiting 
marriage to a man and a woman ultimately be repealed or be held unconstitutional, 
the affected couples then would be free to obtain lawfully authorized marriage 
licenses, have their marriages lawfully solemnized, and lawfully register their 
marriage certificates.41 
                                             
 
41  
Contrary to the contention of Justice Werdegar’s concurring and dissenting 
opinion (post, at pp. 1-2), should the existing marriage statutes ultimately be held 
unconstitutional, we do not believe that the principle of “basic fairness” or a claim 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
78
Accordingly, to remedy the effects of the city officials’ unauthorized 
actions, we shall direct the county clerk and the county recorder of the City and 
County of San Francisco to take the following corrective actions under the 
supervision of the California Director of Health Services, who, by statute, has 
general supervisory authority over the marriage license and marriage certificate 
process.  (See, ante, pp. 17-19.)  The county clerk and the county recorder are 
directed to (1) identify all same-sex couples to whom the officials issued marriage 
licenses, solemnized marriage ceremonies, or registered marriage certificates, 
(2) notify these couples that this court has determined that same-sex marriages that 
have been performed in California are void from their inception and a legal nullity, 
and that these officials have been directed to correct their records to reflect the 
invalidity of these marriage licenses and marriages, (3) provide these couples an 
opportunity to demonstrate that their marriages are not same-sex marriages and 
thus that the official records of their marriage licenses and marriages should not be 
revised, (4) offer to refund, upon request, all marriage-related fees paid by or on 
behalf of same-sex couples, and (5) make appropriate corrections to all relevant 
records. 
VIII 
As anyone familiar with the docket of the United States Supreme Court, of 
this court, or of virtually any appellate court in this nation is aware, many statutes 
currently in force may give rise to constitutional challenges, and not infrequently 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
for “full relief” justifies placing the same-sex couples who took advantage of the 
unauthorized actions of San Francisco officials in a different or better position 
than other same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses in other counties 
throughout the state by public officials who properly fulfilled their duties in 
compliance with the governing state statutes. 
 
 
79
the constitutional questions presented involve issues upon which reasonable 
persons, including reasonable jurists, may disagree.  If every public official who is 
under a statutory duty to perform a ministerial act were free to refuse to perform 
that act based solely on the official’s view that the underlying statute is 
unconstitutional, any semblance of a uniform rule of law quickly would disappear, 
and constant and widespread judicial intervention would be required to permit the 
ordinary mechanisms of government to function.  This, of course, is not the system 
of law with which we are familiar.  Under long established principles, a statute, 
once enacted, is presumed to be constitutional until it has been judicially 
determined to be unconstitutional. 
An executive official, of course, is free to criticize existing statutes, to 
advocate their amendment or repeal, and to voice an opinion as to their 
constitutionality or unconstitutionality.  As we have explained, however, an 
executive official who is charged with the ministerial duty of enforcing a statute 
generally has an obligation to execute that duty in the absence of a judicial 
determination that the statute is unconstitutional, regardless of the official’s 
personal view of the constitutionality of the statute. 
In this case, the city has suggested that a contrary rule ― one under 
which a public official charged with a ministerial duty would be free to make up 
his or her own mind whether a statute is constitutional and whether it must be 
obeyed ― is necessary to protect the rights of minorities.  But history 
demonstrates that members of minority groups, as well as individuals who are 
unpopular or powerless, have the most to lose when the rule of law is 
abandoned  even for what appears, to the person departing from the law, to be 
 
 
80
a just end.42  As observed at the outset of this opinion, granting every public 
official the authority to disregard a ministerial statutory duty on the basis of the 
official’s opinion that the statute is unconstitutional would be fundamentally 
inconsistent with our political system’s commitment to John Adams’ vision of a 
government where official action is determined not by the opinion of an 
individual officeholder — but by the rule of law.   
IX 
For the reasons discussed above, a writ of mandate shall issue compelling 
respondents to comply with the requirements and limitations of the current marriage 
statutes in performing their ministerial duties under such statutes, and directing the 
county clerk and the county recorder of the City and County of San Francisco to 
take the following corrective actions under the supervision of the California Director 
of Health Services:  (1) identify all same-sex couples to whom the officials issued 
marriage licenses, solemnized marriage ceremonies, or registered marriage 
certificates, (2) notify these couples that this court has determined that same-sex 
marriages that have been performed in California are void from their inception 
and a legal nullity, and that these officials have been directed to correct their 
                                             
 
42  
The pronouncement of Sir Thomas More in the well known passage from 
Robert Bolt’s A Man For All Seasons comes to mind:  
 
“Roper:  So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law! 
 
“More:  Yes.  What would you do?  Cut a great road through the law to get 
to the Devil? 
 
“Roper:   I’d cut down every law in England to do that! 
 
“More:  Oh?  And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round 
on you  where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country’s 
planted thick with laws from coast to coast  man’s laws, not God’s  and if you 
cut them down  and you’re just the man to do it  d’you really think you could 
stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit 
of law, for my own safety’s sake.”  (Bolt, A Man for All Seasons (1962) p. 66.)   
 
 
81
records to reflect the invalidity of these marriage licenses and marriages, (3) provide 
these couples an opportunity to demonstrate that their marriages are not same-sex 
marriages and thus that the official records of their marriage licenses and marriages 
should not be revised, (4) offer to refund, upon request, all marriage related fees 
paid by or on behalf of same-sex couples, and (5) make appropriate corrections to 
all relevant records.   
As the prevailing parties, petitioners shall recover their costs. 
 
 
 
GEORGE, C.J. 
WE CONCUR: 
 
BAXTER, J. 
CHIN, J. 
BROWN, J. 
MORENO, J. 
 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING OPINION BY MORENO, J. 
 
I concur.  The majority opinion addresses primarily the limitations on the 
power of local officials to disobey statutes that may be, but have not yet been 
judicially established to be, unconstitutional.  I write separately to focus on the 
related but distinct question of what courts should do when confronted with such 
disobedience on the part of local officials.  As the majority opinion suggests, a 
court should not invariably refuse to decide constitutional questions arising from 
local governments’ or local officials’ refusal to obey purportedly unconstitutional 
statutes.  Indeed, California courts under these circumstances have, on a number of 
occasions, decided the underlying constitutional questions.  In the present case, the 
majority declines to decide the constitutional validity of Family Code section 300, 
prohibiting same-sex marriage, but instead concludes that a writ of mandate 
against San Francisco’s (the city’s) local officials is justified because they 
exceeded their ministerial authority.  As elaborated below, I agree that under these 
somewhat unusual circumstances, local officials’ disobedience of the statute 
justifies this court’s issuance of a writ of mandate against those officials before the 
underlying constitutional question has been adjudicated. 
 
At the outset, I review the requirements for obtaining a writ of mandate.  To 
obtain writ relief a petitioner must show:  “ ‘(1) A clear, present and usually 
 
2 
ministerial duty on the part of the respondent . . . ; and (2) a clear, present and 
beneficial right in the petitioner to the performance of that duty . . . .’ ”  (Santa Clara 
County Counsel Attys. Assn. v. Woodside (1994) 7 Cal.4th 525, 539-540.)  Also 
required is “the lack of any plain, speedy and adequate remedy in the usual course of 
law . . . .”  (Flora Crane Service, Inc. v. Ross (1964) 61 Cal.2d 199, 203.)  Although 
the writ of mandate generally must issue if the above requirements are clearly met 
(see May v. Board of Directors (1949) 34 Cal.2d 125, 133-134), the writ of mandate 
is an equitable remedy that will not issue if it is contrary to “promoting the ends of 
justice.”  (McDaniel v. City etc. of San Francisco (1968) 259 Cal.App.2d 356, 361; 
see also Bartholomae Oil Corp. v. Superior Court (1941) 18 Cal.2d 726, 730.) 
 
The local officials in the present case have a clear ministerial duty to issue 
marriage licenses in conformance with state statute and have violated that duty.  The 
Attorney General, and for that matter the plaintiffs in Lewis v. Alfaro, have a 
substantial right to ensure that marriage licenses conform to the statute.  (See Bd. of 
Soc. Welfare v. County of L.A. (1945) 27 Cal.2d 98, 100-101.)  But when a court is 
asked to grant a writ of mandate to enforce a statute over which hangs a substantial 
cloud of unconstitutionality, the above-stated principles dictate that a court at least has 
the discretion to refuse to issue the writ until the underlying constitutional question 
has been decided. 
 
How should courts exercise that discretion?  In California, generally 
speaking, courts faced with local governments’ or local officials’ refusal to obey 
assertedly unconstitutional statutes have decided the constitutional question before 
determining whether a writ or other requested relief should issue.  (See, e.g., 
County of Riverside v. Superior Court (2003) 30 Cal.4th 278 [county refused to 
obey as unconstitutional a state statute mandating binding arbitration for local 
agencies that reach negotiating impasse with police and firefighters]; Star-Kist 
Foods, Inc. v. County of Los Angeles (1986) 42 Cal.3d 1 [county refused to act in 
 
3 
accordance with a state revenue statute it had judged, correctly, to violate the U.S. 
Const.]; Zee Toys, Inc. v. County of Los Angeles (1978) 85 Cal.App.3d 763, 777-
781 [same]; Paso Robles etc. Hospital Dist. v. Negley (1946) 29 Cal.2d 203 [local 
financial officer refused to issue bonds and defended a lawsuit in order to 
expeditiously settle the constitutional validity of the bond issue]; Denman v. 
Broderick (1896) 111 Cal. 96, 105 [local official refused to spend public funds 
required by a statute believed  to be unconstitutional “special legislation”]; City of 
Oakland v. Digre (1988) 205 Cal.App.3d 99 [local official refused to enforce a 
parcel tax believed to be unconstitutional and required the city to demonstrate its 
constitutionality in court]; Bayside Timber Co. v. Board of Supervisors (1971) 20 
Cal.App.3d 1, 14-15 [county board of supervisors refused to issue permission for 
timber operations, although such refusal was not authorized under rules 
promulgated pursuant to state statute].)  Indeed, any time a city determines that a 
state law is contrary to its own constitutional prerogative of self-governance and 
therefore refuses to obey the law, it is making a constitutional determination.  
(See, e.g., Bishop v. City of San Jose (1969) 1 Cal.3d 56, 63-64 [determining that 
state prevailing wage law for public works projects was not binding on cities].) 
 
As the majority states, “the classic understanding of the separation of powers 
doctrine [is] that the legislative power is the power to enact statutes, the executive 
power is the power to execute or enforce statutes, and the judicial power is the power 
to interpret statutes and to determine their constitutionality.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 
4.)  But “the separation of powers doctrine does not create an absolute or rigid 
division of functions.”  (Ibid.)  As the above cases suggest, local officials sometimes 
exercise their authority to preliminarily determine that a statute that directly affects 
the local government’s functioning is unconstitutional and, in some circumstances, 
refuse to obey that statute as a means of bringing the constitutional challenge.  This 
preliminary determination is the exercise of an executive function.  Local officials and 
 
4 
agencies do not “arrogate[] to [the local executive] core functions of the . . . judicial 
branch” in violation of the separation of powers (Carmel Valley Fire Protection Dist. 
v. State of California (2001) 25 Cal.4th 287, 297-298), but rather raise constitutional 
issues for the courts to ultimately decide. 
 
In my view, there are at least three types of situations in which a local 
government’s disobedience of a statute would be reasonable.  In these situations, 
courts asked to grant a writ of mandate to compel the local agency to obey the 
statute should therefore address the underlying constitutional issue rather than 
simply conclude the local governmental entity exceeded its ministerial authority.  
First, there are some cases in which the statute in question violates a “clearly 
established . . .  constitutional right” (Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982) 457 U.S. 800, 
818).  An executive decision not to spend resources to comply with a clearly 
unconstitutional statute is a reasonable exercise of the local executive power and 
does not usurp a core judicial function.  Indeed, refusing to enforce clearly 
unconstitutional statutes saves the resources of both the executive and the 
judiciary. 
 
A second category of “disobedience” cases involves a local official or 
governmental entity disobeying a statute when there is a substantial question as to 
its constitutionality and the statute governs matters integral to a locality’s limited 
power of self-governance.  In these cases, a local entity or official is directly 
affected by the statute and in a unique position to challenge it.  As the above cases 
illustrate, local entities and officials have challenged statutes to determine the 
validity of a bond, or the payment of a government salary for a position 
unconstitutionally created, or an exemption to a local tax that assertedly violates 
the commerce clause, or a statute that intrudes on local matters of city or county 
employee compensation.  It is noteworthy that in virtually all the above cases, the 
local agency’s or official’s refusal to obey an assertedly unconstitutional statute 
 
5 
had the effect of preserving the status quo, pending judicial resolution of the 
matter, thereby minimizing interference with the judicial function. 
 
Perhaps in some of these cases localities could have proceeded by obtaining 
declaratory relief as to a statute’s unconstitutionality, rather than by disobeying the 
statute.  In other cases, an actual controversy necessary for declaratory relief may 
have been lacking.  In any case, the fact that the local government agency did not 
proceed by means of declaratory relief provided no insurmountable obstacle to a 
court deciding the underlying constitutional issue raised by the agency’s 
disobedience.  (See, e.g., County of Riverside v. Superior Court, supra, 30 Cal.4th 
278, 283.)1  Of course, if a court determines that interim relief to compel a 
government agency to obey a statute is appropriate, it may grant such relief before 
the constitutional question is ultimately adjudicated. 
 
A third possible category of cases in which city officials might legitimately 
disobey statutes of doubtful constitutionality are those in which the question of a 
statute’s constitutionality is substantial, and irreparable harm may result to 
individuals to which the local government agency has some protective obligation 
 be they employees, or students of a public college, or patrons of a public 
library, or patients in a public hospital, or in some cases simply residents of the 
city.  Again, a court asked to grant a writ of mandate could conclude that a delay 
in granting the writ pending resolution of the underlying constitutional question is 
justified.  To issue a writ enforcing a statute that may be unconstitutional, and that 
will work irreparable harm, would not “promote[] the ends of justice” (McDaniel 
                                             
 
1  
The above dictum does not apply when the Legislature has required that a 
governmental entity challenge an assertedly unconstitutional statute by means of 
declaratory relief.  (See, e.g., Rev. & Tax. Code, §  538 [county assessor to 
challenge constitutionality of state revenue statute by requesting declaratory relief 
under Code of Civil Procedure section 1060].) 
 
6 
v. City etc. of San Francisco, supra, 259 Cal.App.2d at pp. 360-361), and a court 
has the discretion to delay such issuance until the underlying constitutional 
question is resolved.   
 
The present case is quite different from the above situations.  First, as the 
majority demonstrates, the unconstitutionality of Family Code section 300 is not 
clearly established by either state or federal constitutional precedent, and certainly 
not from the language of the constitutional provisions themselves.  Nor does this 
case pertain to a statute that interferes with a city’s or county’s limited power of 
self-governance that these entities are in a unique position to challenge.  Rather, 
local officials in this case perform a ministerial function pursuant to the state 
marriage law.  Unlike the cases cited above, in which the constitutionality of a 
statute is likely to go unchallenged if a local governmental entity does not do so, 
Family Code section 300 limits individual rights, and those individuals subject to 
that limitation are in the best position to challenge it. 
 
Nor does the present case fit the third category of cases in which a city 
refuses to enforce a law so as to protect its citizens from irreparable harm.  The 
only harm caused here is a delay in the ability of same-sex couples to get married 
while the constitutional issue is being adjudicated.  But that delay will occur 
whether or not we grant a writ of mandate against the city in this case.  Put another 
way, local officials have no real power to marry same-sex couples, given the 
statutory prohibition against doing so.  What was within their power, prior to our 
issuance of a stay, was to issue licenses of indeterminate legal status.  The exercise 
of the court’s mandate power to preclude local officials from continuing this 
course of action, and voiding the licenses already issued, brings no irreparable 
harm to the individuals who have received or might receive such licenses. 
 
In sum, the city advances no plausible reason why it had to disobey the 
statute in question.  Even so, it might have been appropriate to have delayed the 
 
7 
issuance of a writ of mandate against it until the underlying constitutional question 
had been adjudicated if, for example, the city had issued a single “test case” same-
sex marriage license.  But it went far beyond a test case.  It issued thousands of 
these marriage licenses.  As such, the city went well beyond making a preliminary 
determination of the statute’s unconstitutionality or performing an act that would 
bring the constitutional issue to the courts.  Rather, city officials drastically and 
repeatedly altered the status quo based on their constitutional determination, 
issuing a multitude of licenses that purported to have an independent legal effect, 
contrary to their ministerial duty and statutory obligation and prior to any judicial 
determination of the statute’s unconstitutionality.  By such dramatic overreaching, 
these officials trespassed on a core judicial function of deciding the 
constitutionality of statutes and endowed the issue of their authority to disobey the 
statute with a life of its own, independent of the underlying constitutional issue.  I 
therefore agree with the majority that a writ of mandate is rightly issued against 
the city and its officials in this case. 
 
I reiterate what is clear in the majority opinion.  Our holding in this case in 
no way expresses or implies a view on the underlying issue of the constitutionality 
of a statute prohibiting same-sex marriage.  That issue will be addressed in the 
context of litigation in which the issue is properly raised.  (See Goodridge v. 
Department of Pub. Health (Mass. 2003) 798 N.E.2d 941.) 
MORENO, J. 
 
1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY KENNARD, J. 
 
 
I concur in the judgment, except insofar as it declares void some 4,000 
marriages performed in reliance on the gender-neutral marriage licenses1 issued in 
the City and County of San Francisco.  Although I agree with the majority that San 
Francisco public officials exceeded their authority when they issued those 
licenses, and that the licenses themselves are therefore invalid, I would refrain 
from determining here, in a proceeding from which the persons whose marriages 
are at issue have been excluded, the validity of the marriages solemnized under 
those licenses.  That determination should be made after the constitutionality of 
California laws restricting marriage to opposite-sex couples has been 
authoritatively resolved through judicial proceedings now pending in the courts of 
California. 
                                             
 
1  
As the majority explains, the license application was altered “by 
eliminating the terms ‘bride,’ ‘groom,’ and ‘unmarried man and unmarried 
woman,’ and by replacing them with the terms ‘first applicant,’ ‘second applicant,’ 
and ‘unmarried individuals.’ ”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 7.) 
 
2 
I 
Like the majority, I conclude that officials in the City and County of San 
Francisco exceeded their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage 
licenses to same-sex couples, and I agree with the majority that those officials may 
not justify their actions on the ground that state laws restricting marriage to 
opposite-sex couples violate the state or the federal Constitution.  The cases 
discussed by the majority demonstrate, in my view, that a public official may 
refuse to enforce a statute on constitutional grounds only in these situations:  
(1) when the statute’s unconstitutionality is obvious beyond dispute in light of 
unambiguous constitutional language or controlling judicial decisions; (2) when 
refraining from enforcement is necessary to preserve the status quo and to prevent 
irreparable harm pending judicial determination of a legitimate and substantial 
constitutional question about the statute’s validity; (3) when enforcing the statute 
could put the public official at risk for substantial personal liability; or (4) when 
refraining from enforcement is the only practical means to obtain a judicial 
determination of the constitutional question.  (See Field, The Effect of an 
Unconstitutional Statute (1935, reprint ed. 1971) p. 119 et seq.; Note, Right of 
Ministerial Officer to Raise Defense of Unconstitutionality in Mandamus 
Proceeding (1931) 15 Minn. L.Rev. 340; Rapacz, Protection of Officers Who Act 
Under Unconstitutional Statutes (1927) 11 Minn. L.Rev. 585; Note, Who Can Set 
Up Unconstitutionality — Whether Public Official Has Sufficient Interest (1920) 
34 Harv. L.Rev. 86.)  Because none of these situations is present here, as I explain 
below, the public officials acted wrongly in refusing to enforce the opposite-sex 
restriction in California’s marriage laws. 
 
3 
A.  Indisputably Unconstitutional Law 
In restricting marriages to couples consisting of one woman and one man, 
California’s marriage laws are not plainly or obviously unconstitutional under 
either the state or the federal Constitution.  Neither Constitution expressly 
prohibits limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples, and neither Constitution 
expressly grants any person a right to marry someone of the same sex.  Nor does 
any judicial decision establish beyond reasonable dispute that restricting marriage 
to heterosexual couples violates any provision of the California Constitution or the 
United States Constitution. 
Indeed, there is a decision of the United States Supreme Court, binding on 
all other courts and public officials, that a state law restricting marriage to 
opposite-sex couples does not violate the federal Constitution’s guarantees of 
equal protection and due process of law.  After the Minnesota Supreme Court held 
that Minnesota laws preventing marriages between persons of the same sex did not 
violate the equal protection or due process clauses of the United States 
Constitution (Baker v. Nelson (Minn. 1971) 191 N.W.2d 185), the decision was 
appealed to the United States Supreme Court, as federal law then permitted (see 28 
U.S.C. former § 1257(2), 62 Stat. 929 as amended by 84 Stat. 590).  The high 
court later dismissed that appeal “for want of substantial federal question.”  (Baker 
v. Nelson (1972) 409 U.S. 810.) 
As the United States Supreme Court has explained, a dismissal on the 
ground that an appeal presents no substantial federal question is a decision on the 
merits of the case, establishing that the lower court’s decision on the issues of 
federal law was correct.  (Mandel v. Bradley (1977) 432 U.S. 173, 176; Hicks v. 
Miranda (1975) 422 U.S. 332, 344.)  Summary decisions of this kind “prevent 
lower courts from coming to opposite conclusions on the precise issues presented 
and necessarily decided by those actions.”  (Mandel v. Bradley, supra, at p. 176.)  
 
4 
Thus, the high court’s summary decision in Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, 
prevents lower courts and public officials from coming to the conclusion that a 
state law barring marriage between persons of the same sex violates the equal 
protection or due process guarantees of the United States Constitution. 
The binding force of a summary decision on the merits continues until the 
high court instructs otherwise.  (Hicks v. Miranda, supra, 422 U.S. at p. 344.)  
That court may release lower courts from the binding effect of one of its decisions 
on the merits either by expressly overruling that decision or through “ ‘doctrinal 
developments’ ” that are necessarily incompatible with that decision.  (Id. at 
p. 344.)  The United States Supreme Court has not expressly overruled Baker v. 
Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810, nor do any of its later decisions contain doctrinal 
developments that are necessarily incompatible with that decision. 
The San Francisco public officials have argued that the United States 
Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas (2003) 539 U.S. 558, holding 
unconstitutional a state law “making it a crime for two persons of the same sex to 
engage in certain intimate sexual conduct” (id. at p. 562), amounts to a doctrinal 
development that releases courts and public officials from any obligation to obey 
the high court’s decision in Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810.  Although 
Lawrence represents a significant shift in the high court’s view of constitutional 
protections for same-sex relationships, the majority in Lawrence carefully pointed 
out that “there is no longstanding history in this country of laws directed at 
homosexual conduct as a distinct matter” (Lawrence v. Texas, supra, at p. 568) 
and that the case “d[id] not involve whether the government must give formal 
recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter” (id. at 
p. 578).  Because there is a long history in this country of defining marriage as a 
relation between one man and one woman, and because marriage laws do involve 
formal government recognition of relationships, the high court’s decision in 
 
5 
Lawrence did not undermine the authority of Baker v. Nelson to such a degree that 
a lower federal or state court, much less a public official, could disregard it.  Until 
the United States Supreme Court says otherwise, which it has not yet done, Baker 
v. Nelson defines federal constitutional law on the question whether a state may 
deny same-sex couples the right to marry. 
Because neither the federal nor the California Constitution contains any 
provision directly and expressly guaranteeing a right to marry another person of 
the same sex, and because no court has ever decided that either Constitution 
confers that right, this is not a situation in which a public official refused to 
enforce a law that was obviously and indisputably unconstitutional. 
B.  Preserving the Status Quo to Prevent Serious Harm 
Nor was this a situation in which a public official, by temporarily refraining 
from enforcing a state law, merely preserved the status quo to prevent potentially 
irreparable harm pending judicial determination of a legitimate and substantial 
constitutional question about the law’s validity.  By issuing licenses authorizing 
same-sex marriages, the San Francisco public officials did not preserve a status 
quo, but instead they altered the status quo in that California law has always 
prohibited same-sex marriage. 
In 1977, the Legislature amended Family Code section 300 to specify that 
marriage is a relation “between a man and a woman.”  (See maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 15, fn. 11.)  At the March 2000 election, the voters approved Proposition 22, 
which enacted Family Code section 308.5 declaring that “[o]nly marriage between 
a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”2  But those statutory 
                                             
 
2  
Although California law has expressly restricted matrimony to heterosexual 
couples, it has also extended most of the financial and other benefits of marriage 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
6 
measures did not change existing law.  Since the earliest days of statehood, 
California has recognized only opposite-sex marriages.  (See, e.g., Mott v. Mott 
(1890) 82 Cal. 413, 416 [quoting legal dictionary’s definition of marriage as a 
contract “ ‘by which a man and woman reciprocally engage to live with each other 
during their joint lives, and to discharge toward each other the duties imposed by 
law on the relation of husband and wife’ ”].)  In issuing gender-neutral marriage 
licenses, therefore, San Francisco public officials could not have intended merely 
a temporary or interim preservation of an existing state of affairs pending a 
judicial determination of a newly enacted law’s constitutionality.  Instead, as their 
public statements indicated, they issued those licenses to effect a fundamental and 
permanent change in traditional marriage eligibility requirements, based on their 
own views about constitutional questions.  In so doing, they exceeded their 
authority. 
C.  Public Officials’ Personal Liability 
This was not a situation in which public officials had reason to fear they 
might be held personally liable in damages for enforcing a constitutionally invalid 
state law.  In a federal civil rights action brought under 42 United States Code 
section 1983, a public official may not be held personally liable for enforcing a 
state law that violates a federal constitutional right unless the “contours of the 
right [are] sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what 
he is doing violates that right.”  (Anderson v. Creighton (1987) 483 U.S. 635, 640; 
accord, Saucier v. Katz (2001) 533 U.S. 194, 202; Wilson v. Layne (1999) 526 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
to same-sex couples through domestic partner legislation.  (See, e.g., Fam. Code, 
§ 297 et seq., Stats. 2003, ch. 421, operative Jan. 1, 2005.) 
 
7 
U.S. 603, 614-615.)  Because the United States Supreme Court has determined 
that a state law prohibiting same-sex marriage does not violate the federal 
Constitution (Baker v. Nelson, supra, 409 U.S. 810), no reasonable public official 
could conclude that denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples would violate 
a right that was clearly established under the federal Constitution.  Accordingly, 
federal civil rights law could not impose personal liability on local officials in 
California for enforcing California’s same-sex marriage prohibition.  “[A]bsent 
contrary direction, state officials and those with whom they deal are entitled to 
rely on a presumptively valid state statute, enacted in good faith and by no means 
plainly unlawful.”  (Lemon v. Kurtzman (1973) 411 U.S. 192, 208-209 (plur. opn. 
of Burger, C. J.).) 
Nor was there was any reasonable basis for local officials to anticipate 
personal liability under the California Constitution or California civil rights laws 
for denying marriage licenses to same-sex couples.  Government Code section 
820.6 provides immunity for public employees acting in good faith, without 
malice, under a statute that proves to be unconstitutional.  Because same-sex 
marriage has never been legally authorized in California, the California 
Constitution does not expressly grant a right to same-sex marriage, and no judicial 
decision by any California court has ever suggested, much less held, that state 
laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples violate the California Constitution, 
Government Code section 820.6 would immunize any public official from 
personal liability for enforcing the same-sex marriage prohibition should that 
prohibition, at some later time, be held to violate the California Constitution. 
D.  Necessity of Nonenforcement to Obtain Judicial Resolution 
Finally, this is not a situation in which a public official’s nonenforcement 
of a law was the only practical way to obtain a judicial determination of that law’s 
 
8 
constitutionality.  Just as the constitutionality of California’s prohibition against 
interracial marriage was properly challenged by a mixed-race couple who were 
denied a marriage license (Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711), the 
constitutionality of California’s prohibition against same-sex marriage could have 
been readily challenged at any time through a lawsuit brought by a same-sex 
couple who had been denied a marriage license.  Indeed, challenges of this sort are 
now pending in the superior court.  (See maj. opn., ante, at p. 75.) 
E.  Policy Grounds for General Rule Prohibiting Nonenforcement on 
Constitutional Grounds 
As the majority points out (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 2-4, 63-64), confusion 
and chaos would ensue if local public officials in each of California’s 58 counties 
could separately and independently decide not to enforce long-established laws 
with which they disagreed, based on idiosyncratic readings of broadly worded 
constitutional provisions.  To ensure uniformity and consistency in the statewide 
application and enforcement of duly enacted and presumptively valid statutes, the 
authority of public officials to decline enforcement of state laws, in the absence of 
a judicial determination of invalidity, based on the officials’ own constitutional 
determinations, is and must be carefully and narrowly limited.  I agree with the 
majority that San Francisco public officials exceeded those limits when they 
declined to enforce state marriage laws by issuing gender-neutral marriage 
licenses to same-sex couples. 
II 
Although I agree with the majority that San Francisco officials exceeded 
their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage licenses to same-sex 
couples, I do not agree with all the reasoning that the majority offers in support of 
that conclusion.  In particular, I do not agree that a “line of decisions” had 
established, before the 1978 enactment of section 3.5 of article III of the California 
 
9 
Constitution, that “only administrative agencies constitutionally authorized to 
exercise judicial power have the authority to determine the constitutional validity 
of statutes.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 44.) 
The majority does not identify any pre-1978 decision holding that a 
nonconstitutional administrative agency, during quasi-judicial administrative 
proceedings, lacked authority to determine a statute’s constitutionality.  The 
majority asserts that this court so held in State of California v. Superior Court 
(Veta) (1974) 12 Cal.3d 237.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 39.)  But this court there 
decided only that the doctrine of exhaustion of administrative remedies did not 
apply to a constitutional challenge to the statute from which the administrative 
agency derived its authority.  (State of California v. Superior Court (Veta), supra, 
at p. 251.)  In concluding that a litigant was not required during quasi-judicial 
administrative proceedings to make a constitutional challenge to the statute that 
created the agency, this court explained that “[i]t would be heroic indeed to 
compel a party to appear before an administrative body to challenge its very 
existence and to expect a dispassionate hearing before its preponderantly lay 
membership on the constitutionality of the statute establishing its status and 
functions.”  (Ibid.)  This court did not state, or even imply, that an administrative 
agency lacked authority to resolve constitutional issues that a litigant might 
present. 
I also see no need for, and do not join, the majority’s observations on topics 
far removed from the issue presented here, such as the powers of the President of 
the United States (maj. opn., ante, at p. 48, fn. 26) and the existence of certain 
legal defenses to war crimes charges (id. at p. 52, fn. 30).  These issues are not 
before this court. 
 
10 
III 
Because I agree with the majority that San Francisco’s public officials 
exceeded their authority when they issued gender-neutral marriage licenses to 
same-sex couples, I concur in the judgment insofar as it requires those officials to 
comply with state marriage laws, to identify the same-sex couples to whom 
gender-neutral marriage licenses were issued, to notify those couples that their 
marriage licenses are invalid, to offer refunds of marriage license fees collected, 
and to make appropriate corrections to all relevant records.  But I would not 
require notification that the marriages themselves “are void from their inception 
and a legal nullity.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 80.) 
Although a marriage license is a requirement for a valid marriage (Fam. 
Code, §§ 300, 350), some defects in a marriage license do not invalidate the 
marriage.  (See id., § 306; see also, e.g., Argonaut Ins. Co. v. Industrial Acc. Com. 
(1962) 204 Cal.App.2d 805, 809 [applicant’s use of false names on license 
application did not invalidate marriage].)  Whether the issuance of a gender-
neutral license to a same-sex couple, in violation of state laws restricting marriage 
to opposite-sex couples, is a defect that precludes any possibility of a valid 
marriage may well depend upon resolution of the constitutional validity of that 
statutory restriction.  If the restriction is constitutional, then a marriage between 
persons of the same sex would be a legal impossibility, and no marriage would 
ever have existed.  But if the restriction violates a fundamental constitutional right, 
the situation could be quite different.  A court might then be required to determine 
the validity of same-sex marriages that had been performed before the laws 
prohibiting those marriages had been invalidated on constitutional grounds. 
When a court has declared a law unconstitutional, questions about the effect 
of that determination on prior actions, events, and transactions “are among the 
most difficult of those which have engaged the attention of courts, state and 
 
11 
federal, and it is manifest from numerous decisions that an all-inclusive statement 
of a principle of absolute retroactive invalidity cannot be justified.”  (Chicot 
County Dist. v. Bank (1940) 308 U.S. 371, 374; accord, Lemon v. Kurtzman, 
supra, 411 U.S. at p. 198.)  This court has acknowledged that, in appropriate 
circumstances, an unconstitutional statute may be judicially reformed to 
retroactively extend its benefits to a class that the statute expressly but improperly 
excluded.  (Kopp v. Fair Pol. Practices Com. (1995) 11 Cal.4th 607, 624-625 
(lead opn. of Lucas, C. J.), 685 (conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J.) [joining in pt. III 
of lead opn.].)  Thus, it is possible, though by no means certain, that if the state 
marriage laws prohibiting same-sex marriage were held to violate the state 
Constitution, same-sex marriages performed before that determination could then 
be recognized as valid. 
Although the United States Supreme Court has determined that there is no 
right to same-sex marriage under the federal Constitution (Baker v. Nelson, supra, 
409 U.S. 810), courts in other states construing their own state Constitutions in 
recent years have reached differing conclusions on this question.  (Compare 
Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health (Mass. 2003) 798 N.E.2d 941 [denying 
marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates Massachusetts Constitution] with 
Standhardt v. Sup. Ct. (Ariz.Ct.App. 2003) 77 P.3d 451 [no right to same-sex 
marriage under Arizona Constitution].)  Recognizing the difficulty and seriousness 
of the constitutional question, which is now presented in pending superior court 
actions, this court has declined to address it in this case.  Until that constitutional 
issue has been finally resolved under the California Constitution, it is premature 
and unwise to assert, as the majority essentially does, that the thousands of same-
sex weddings performed in San Francisco were empty and meaningless 
ceremonies in the eyes of the law. 
 
12 
For many, marriage is the most significant and most highly treasured 
experience in a lifetime.  Individuals in loving same-sex relationships have waited 
years, sometimes several decades, for a chance to wed, yearning to obtain the 
public validation that only marriage can give.  In recognition of that, this court 
should proceed most cautiously in resolving the ultimate question of the validity of 
the same-sex marriages performed in San Francisco, even though those marriages 
were performed under licenses issued by San Francisco public officials without 
proper authority and in violation of state law.  Because the licenses were issued 
without proper authorization, and in the absence of a judicial determination that 
the state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage are unconstitutional, employers and 
other third parties would be under no legal obligation to recognize the validity of 
any of the same-sex marriages at issue here.  Should the pending lawsuits 
ultimately be resolved by a determination that the opposite-sex marriage 
restriction is constitutionally invalid—an issue on which I express no opinion—it 
would then be the appropriate time to address the validity of previously 
solemnized same-sex marriages. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
KENNARD, J. 
 
 
 
1
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY WERDEGAR, J. 
 
I agree with the majority that San Francisco officials violated the Family 
Code by licensing marriages between persons of the same sex.  Accordingly, I 
concur in the decision to order those officials to comply with the existing marriage 
statutes unless and until they are determined to be unconstitutional.  Because 
constitutional challenges are pending in the lower courts, to order city officials not 
to license additional same-sex marriages in the meantime is an appropriate way to 
preserve the status quo pending the outcome of that litigation.  That, however, is 
the extent of my agreement with the majority.   
I. 
I do not join in the majority’s decision to address the validity of the 
marriages already performed and to declare them void.  My concern here is not for 
the future of same-sex marriage.  That question is not before us and, like the 
majority, I intimate no view on it.  My concern, rather, is for basic fairness in 
judicial process.  The superior court is presently considering whether the state 
statutes that limit marriage to “a man and a woman” (e.g., Fam. Code, § 300) 
violate the state and federal Constitutions.  The same-sex couples challenging 
those statutes claim the state has, without sufficient justification, denied the 
fundamental right to marry (e.g., Zablocki v. Redhail (1978) 434 U.S. 374, 383; 
Loving v. Virginia (1967) 388 U.S. 1, 12; Perez v. Sharp (1948) 32 Cal.2d 711, 
 
 
2
714-715) to a class of persons defined by gender or sexual orientation.  Should the 
relevant statutes be held unconstitutional, the relief to which the purportedly 
married couples would be entitled would normally include recognition of their 
marriages.  By analogy, interracial marriages that were void under antimiscegeny 
statutes at the time they were solemnized were nevertheless recognized as valid 
after the high court rejected those laws in Loving v. Virginia.  (E.g., Dick v. Reaves 
(Okla. 1967) 434 P.2d 295, 298.)  By postponing a ruling on this issue, we could 
preserve the status quo pending the outcome of the constitutional litigation.  
Instead, by declaring the marriages “void and of no legal effect from their 
inception” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 70), the majority permanently deprives future 
courts of the ability to award full relief in the event the existing statutes are held 
unconstitutional.  This premature decision can in no sense be thought to represent 
fair judicial process. 
The majority asserts that “it would not be prudent or wise to leave the 
validity of these marriages in limbo for what might be a substantial period of time 
given the potential confusion (for third parties, such as employers, insurers, or 
other governmental entities, as well as for the affected couples) that such an 
uncertain status inevitably would entail.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 75-76.)  
Nowhere in the opinion, however, does the majority note that any same-sex couple 
has filed a lawsuit seeking the legal benefits of their purported marriage.  Nor is 
the absence of such lawsuits surprising, since any reasonable court would stay 
such actions pending the outcome of the ongoing constitutional litigation.1   
                                             
 
1  
The majority does note that “officials of the federal Social Security 
Administration had raised questions regarding that agency’s processing of name-
change applications resulting from California marriages” (maj. opn., ante, at p. 9), 
but this is unlikely to be a serious problem because San Francisco used a 
(footnote continued on next page) 
 
 
3
 
The majority’s decision to declare the existing marriages void is unfair for 
the additional reason that the affected couples have not been joined as parties or 
given notice and an opportunity to appear.  On March 12, 2004, we denied all 
petitions to intervene filed by affected couples.  That ruling made sense at the time 
it was announced because our prior order of March 11, 2004, which specified the 
issues to be briefed and argued, did not identify the validity of the existing 
marriages as an issue.  Only on April 14, 2004, after having denied the petitions to 
intervene, did the court identify and solicit briefing on the issue of the marriages’ 
validity.  To declare marriages void after denying requests by the purported 
spouses to appear in court as parties and be heard on the matter is hard to justify, 
to say the least.2   
 
The majority counters that “the legal arguments of such couples with regard 
to the question of the validity of the existing same-sex marriages have been heard 
and fully considered.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 74.)  But this is a claim a court may 
not in good conscience make unless it has given, to the persons whose rights it is 
purporting to adjudicate, notice and the opportunity to appear.  This is the 
irreducible minimum of due process, even in cases involving numerous parties.  
(See Mullane v. Central Hannover Tr. Co. (1950) 339 U.S. 306, 314-315.)  
Amicus curiae briefs, which any member of the public may ask to file and which 
                                                                                                                                                              
(footnote continued from previous page) 
nonstandard, easily recognizable form for licensing same-sex marriages (id., at 
pp. 7-8, 19-20). 
2  
Compare Code of Civil Procedure section 389, subdivision (a):  “A person 
who is subject to service of process and whose joinder will not deprive the court of 
jurisdiction over the subject matter of the action shall be joined as a party in the 
action if . . . (2) he claims an interest relating to the subject of the action and is so 
situated that the disposition of the action in his absence may (i) as a practical 
matter impair or impede his ability to protect that interest . . . .” 
 
 
4
the court has no obligation to read, cannot seriously be thought to satisfy these 
requirements.  The majority writes that “requiring each of the thousands of same-
sex couples to be named and served as parties in the present action, would add 
nothing of substance to this proceeding.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 73.)  Of course, 
the same argument can be made in many class actions with respect to the absent 
members of the class, but due process still gives each class member the right to 
notice and the opportunity to appear.  (Mullane v. Central Hannover Tr. Co., 
supra, 339 U.S. at pp. 314-315.)  Here, notice has been given to none of the 4,000 
affected couples; and even the 11 same-sex couples who affirmatively sought to 
intervene were denied the opportunity to appear.  (Maj. opn., ante, at p. 74.)  What 
the majority has done, in effect, is to give petitioners the benefit of an action 
against a defendant class of same-sex couples free of the burden of procedural due 
process.  If the majority truly desired to hear the views of the same-sex couples 
whose rights it is adjudicating, it would not proceed in absentia.     
 
Aware of this problem, the majority offers a specious imitation of due 
process by ordering the city to notify the same-sex couples that this court has 
decided their marriages are void, and to “provide these couples an opportunity to 
demonstrate that their marriages are not same-sex marriages” before canceling 
their marriage records.  (Maj. opn., ante, at pp. 80, 81; see also id., at p. 74.)  This 
procedure may prevent the city from mistakenly deleting the records of 
heterosexual marriages, but it cannot benefit any same-sex couple.  Notice after 
the fact that one’s rights have been adjudicated is not due process. 
The majority attempts to justify the procedural shortcuts it is taking by 
invoking the rule that “[a] marriage prohibited as . . . illegal and declared to be 
‘void’ or ‘void from the beginning’ is a legal nullity and its validity may be 
asserted or shown in any proceeding in which the fact of marriage may be 
material.”  (Estate of Gregorson (1911) 160 Cal. 21, 26, quoted in maj. opn., ante, 
 
 
5
at p. 72.)  But that rule, until today, has permitted persons other than spouses to 
challenge the validity of a marriage only as and when necessary to resolve another 
issue in the case, for example, the legitimacy of an heir’s claim to property or an 
assertion of marital privilege.  In essence, the Gregorson rule simply recognizes 
that a litigant whose claim or defense depends on the validity or invalidity of a 
marriage may introduce evidence to prove the point.3  We have never held that 
this type of collateral attack on a marriage has any binding effect on nonparties to 
the action.  A court’s refusal in the course of a criminal trial to recognize a claim 
of marital privilege, for example, does not compel the State Office of Vital 
Records to destroy a record of the marriage.  The majority asserts that the question 
of the existing marriages’ validity or invalidity is material because it is “central to 
the scope of the remedy that may and should be ordered in this case.”  (Maj. opn., 
ante, at p. 72, italics added.)  But this is just another way of saying the question is 
material because the Attorney General has asked us to decide it.  With this 
reasoning, the majority assumes the conclusion and converts the Gregorson rule 
into a pretext for denying fundamental fairness.   
                                             
 
3  
For example, Estate of Elliott (1913) 165 Cal. 339, 343 (decedent’s 
daughter may challenge purported marriage of decedent to person seeking 
appointment as administrator); Estate of Stark (1941) 48 Cal.App.2d 209, 215-216 
(heirs may challenge marriage of decedent’s parents to show that other purported 
heirs were illegitimate and, thus, lack standing to contest the will); People v. Little 
(1940) 41 Cal.App.2d 797, 800-801 (the People in a criminal case may challenge 
defendant’s marriage to an alleged coconspirator in order to avoid the rule that 
spouses cannot commit the crime of conspiracy); People v. MacDonald (1938) 24 
Cal.App.2d 702, 704-705 (the People in a criminal case may challenge defendant’s 
marriage to a witness in order to defeat a claim of spousal privilege); People v. 
Glab (1936) 13 Cal.App.2d 528, 535 (same). 
 
 
6
II. 
I also do not join in the majority’s unnecessary, wide-ranging comments on 
the respective powers of the judicial and executive branches of government.   
The ostensible occasion for the majority’s comments—a threat to the rule 
of law (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 3, 79-80)—seems an extravagant characterization of 
recent events.  On March 11, 2004, when we assumed jurisdiction and issued an 
interim order directing San Francisco officials to cease licensing same-sex 
marriages, those officials immediately stopped.  Apparently the only reason they 
had not stopped earlier is that the lower courts had denied similar applications for 
interim relief.  While city officials evidently understood their oaths of office as 
commanding obedience to the Constitution rather than to the marriage statutes 
they believed to be unconstitutional, those officials never so much as hinted that 
they would not respect the authority of the courts to decide the matter.  Indeed, not 
only did our interim order meet with immediate, unreserved compliance by city 
officials, but the same order apparently sufficed to recall to duty any other public 
officials who might privately have been thinking to follow San Francisco’s lead.  
In the meantime, not one of California’s 58 counties or over 400 municipalities 
has licensed a same-sex marriage.    
Under these circumstances, I see no justification for asserting a broad claim 
of power over the executive branch.  Make no mistake, the majority does assert 
such a claim by holding that executive officers must follow statutory rather than 
constitutional law until a court gives them permission in advance to do otherwise.  
For the judiciary to assert such power over the executive branch is fundamentally 
misguided.  As the high court has explained, “[i]n the performance of assigned 
constitutional duties each branch of the Government must initially interpret the 
Constitution, and the interpretation of its powers by any branch is due great 
respect from the others.”  (United States v. Nixon (1974) 418 U.S. 683, 703, italics 
 
 
7
added.)  To recognize that an executive officer has the practical freedom to act 
based on an interpretation of the Constitution that may ultimately prove to be 
wrong does not mean the rule of law has collapsed.  So long as the courts remain 
open to hear legal challenges to executive conduct, so long as the courts have 
power to enjoin such conduct pending final determination of its legality, and so 
long as the other branches acknowledge the courts’ role as “ ‘ultimate interpreter 
of the Constitution’ ” (id., at p. 704, quoting Baker v. Carr (1962) 369 U.S. 186, 
211) in matters properly within their jurisdiction, no genuine threat to the rule of 
law exists.  San Francisco’s compliance with our interim order eloquently 
demonstrates this.     
Furthermore, a rule requiring an executive officer to seek a court’s 
permission before declining to comply with an apparently unconstitutional statute 
is fundamentally at odds with the separation of powers and, in many cases, 
unenforceable.  The executive branch is necessarily active, managing events as 
they occur.  The judicial branch is necessarily reactive, waiting until invited to 
serve as neutral referee.  The executive branch does not await the courts’ pleasure.  
A rule to the contrary, though perhaps enforceable against local officials in some 
cases, will be impossible to enforce against executive officers who exercise a 
greater share of the state’s power, such as a Governor or an Attorney General.  By 
happy tradition in this country, executive officers have generally acquiesced in the 
judicial branch’s traditional claim of final authority to resolve constitutional 
disputes.  (Marbury v. Madison (1803) 5 U.S. 137, 176; see also United States v. 
Nixon, supra, 418 U.S. 683, 703.)  But a court can never afford to forget that the 
judiciary “may truly be said to have neither Force nor Will, but merely judgment; 
and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy 
of its judgments.”  (Hamilton, The Federalist No. 78 (Willis ed. 1982) p. 394.)  
 
 
8
Accordingly, we are ill advised to announce categorical rules that will not stand 
the test of harder cases.   
The majority acknowledges that “legislators and executive officials may 
take into account constitutional considerations in making discretionary decisions 
within their authorized sphere of action — such as whether to enact or veto 
proposed legislation or exercise prosecutorial discretion.”  (Maj. opn., ante, at 
p. 4.)  But the majority views executive officers exercising “ministerial” functions 
as statutory automatons, denied even the scope to obey their oaths of office to 
follow the Constitution.  (Ibid.)  Contrary to the majority, I do not find the 
purported distinction between discretionary and ministerial functions helpful in 
this context.  Were not state officials performing ministerial functions when, 
strictly enforcing state segregation laws in the years following Brown v. Board of 
Education (1954) 347 U.S. 483, they refused to admit African-American pupils to 
all-White schools until the courts had applied Brown’s decision about a Kansas 
school system to each state’s law?  We formerly believed that school officials’ 
oaths of office to obey the Constitution had sufficient gravity in such cases to 
permit them to obey the higher law, even before the courts had spoken state by 
state.  (Southern Pac. Transportation Co. v. Public Utilities Com. (1976) 18 
Cal.3d 308, 311, fn. 2 [3d par.].)  So, too, did the United States Supreme Court.  
(Cooper v. Aaron (1958) 358 U.S. 1, 18-20.)  Today, in contrast, the majority 
equivocates on this point (see maj. opn., ante, at pp. 53-54) and writes that “a 
public official ‘faithfully upholds the Constitution by complying with the 
mandates of the Legislature, leaving to courts the decision whether those mandates 
are invalid’ ” (id., at p. 51, quoting Southern Pac. Transportation Co. v. Public 
Utilities Com., supra, at p. 319 (conc. & dis. opn. of Mosk, J.)).  But as history 
demonstrates, however convenient the majority’s view may be in dealing with 
 
 
9
subordinate officers within a governmental hierarchy, that view is not entirely 
correct. 
The majority’s strong view of judicial power over the executive branch 
leads it to suggest, albeit without actually so holding, that a state may properly 
condition on advance judicial approval its executive officers’ duty to obey even 
the federal Constitution.  The majority writes, for example, that “[t]he city has not 
cited any case holding that the federal Constitution prohibits a state from defining 
the authority of a state’s executive officials in a manner that requires such officials 
to comply with a clearly applicable statute unless and until such a statute is 
judicially determined to be unconstitutional” (maj. opn., ante, at pp. 65-66), and 
that “ ‘the power of a public officer to question the constitutionality of a statute as 
an excuse for refusing to enforce it . . . is a purely local question’ [citation] — that 
is, purely a question of state (not federal) law” (id., at p. 68, quoting Smith v. 
Indiana (1903) 191 U.S. 138, 148, italics in maj. opn.).4 
                                             
 
4  
In Smith v. Indiana, supra, 191 U.S. 138, the high court held only that it 
would not necessarily recognize a state official’s standing to challenge a state law 
on federal grounds.  (See id., at pp. 148-150.)  Even on this narrow point, Smith 
has not been consistently followed.  (See Board of Education v. Allen (1968) 392 
U.S. 236, 241, fn. 5 [local school officials permitted to challenge under the federal 
Constitution a state statute requiring them to purchase and loan textbooks to 
parochial school pupils]; Coleman v. Miller (1939) 307 U.S. 433, 438 & fn. 3 
[state legislators permitted to challenge under the federal Constitution state’s 
procedures for recording votes on constitutional amendments]; cf. id., at p. 466 
(separate opn. of Frankfurter, J., citing Smith); Akron Board of Ed. v. State Board 
of Ed. of Ohio (6th Cir. 1974) 490 F.2d 1285, 1290-1291, cert. den. sub nom. State 
Board of Education of Ohio v. Akron Board of Education (1974) 417 U.S. 932 
[local school officials permitted to challenge under the federal Constitution state 
officials’ decision to transfer White students from desegregated schools to all-
White schools]; cf. Akron Board of Ed. v. State Board of Ed. of Ohio, supra, 490 
F.2d at p. 1296 (conc. & dis. opn. of Pratt, J., citing Smith).) 
 
 
10
Given that respondent city officials have complied with our interim order to 
cease issuing same-sex marriage licenses, and that the constitutionality of the 
existing marriage statutes is presently under review, I consider the majority’s 
determination to speculate about the limits of a state official’s duty to obey the 
federal Constitution unnecessary and regrettable.  A court should not trifle with 
the doctrine invoked by recalcitrant state officials, in the years following Brown v. 
Board of Education, supra, 347 U.S. 483, to rationalize their delay in complying 
with the Fourteenth Amendment.  The high court definitively repudiated this 
erroneous doctrine in Cooper v. Aaron, supra, 358 U.S. 1, 18:  “No state legislator 
or executive or judicial officer can war against the Constitution without violating 
his undertaking to support it.”  The United States Constitution, itself, immediately 
commands the unqualified obedience of state officials in article VI, section 3, 
which declares that “all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States 
and of the several states, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this 
Constitution . . . .”  (Italics added; see also Cooper v. Aaron, supra, 358 U.S. at 
pp. 19-20.)   
We, as a court, should not claim more power than we need to do our job 
effectively.  In particular, strong claims of judicial power over the executive 
branch are best left unmade and, if they must be made, are best reserved for cases 
presenting a real threat to the separation of powers—a threat that provides 
manifest necessity for the claim, a genuine test of the claim’s validity, and a 
suitable incentive for caution in its articulation.  None of these conditions, all of 
which are necessary to ensure sound decisions in hard cases, is present here.  
III. 
In conclusion, I agree with the majority’s decision to order city officials not 
to license additional same-sex marriages pending resolution of the constitutional 
 
 
11
challenges to the existing marriage statutes.  To say more at this time is neither 
necessary nor wise.   
 
 
 
 
 
 
WERDEGAR, J. 
 
 
1
See last page for addresses and telephone numbers for counsel who argued in Supreme Court. 
 
Name of Opinion Lockyer v. City and County of San Francisco 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Unpublished Opinion 
Original Appeal 
Original Proceeding XXX 
Review Granted 
Rehearing Granted 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Opinion No. S122923 & S122865 
Date Filed: August 12, 2004 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Court: 
County: 
Judge: 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Appellant: 
 
Bill Lockyer, Attorney General, Andrea Lynn Hoch, Chief Assistant Attorney General, Louis R. Mauro, 
Assistant Attorney General, Kathleen A. Lynch, Zackery Morazzini, Hiren Patel, Timothy M. Muscat, 
Douglas J. Woods and Christopher E. Krueger, Deputy Attorneys General, for Petitioner Bill Lockyer, as 
Attorney General of the State of California. 
 
Alliance Defense Fund, Benjamin W. Bull, Jordan W. Lorence, Gary S. McCaleb, Glen Lavy, Robert H. 
Taylor; Center for Marriage Law, Vincent P. McCarthy; Law Offices of Terry L. Thompson and Terry L. 
Thompson for Petitioners Barbara Lewis, Charles McIlhenny and Edward Mei. 
 
Liberty Counsel, Mathew D. Staver, Rena M. Lindevaldsen; and Ross S. Heckmann for Randy Thomasson 
and Campaign for California Families as Amici Curiae on behalf of Petitioner Bill Lockyer, as Attorney 
General of the State of California. 
 
Divine Queen Mariette Do-Nguyen as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Petitioner Bill Lockyer, as Attorney 
General of the State of California. 
 
__________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
Attorneys for Respondent: 
 
Dennis J. Herrera, City Attorney, Therese M. Stewart, Chief Deputy City Attorney, Ellen Forman, Wayne 
K. Snodgrass, Thomas S. Lakritz, K. Scott Dickey, Kathleen S. Morris and Sherri Sokeland Kaiser, Deputy 
City Attorneys; Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin, Bobbie J. Wilson, Pamela K. Fulmer, 
Amy E. Margolin, Sarah M. King, Kevin H. Lewis, Ceide Zapparoni, Glenn M. Levy and Chandra Miller 
Fienen for Respondents. 
 
Alma Marie Triche-Winston and Charel Winston as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
2
 
 
 
Page 2 - counsel continued - S122923 & S122865 
 
 
Attorney for Respondent: 
 
Law Offices of Waukeen Q. McCoy and Waukeen Q. McCoy for Dr. Anthony Bernan, Andrew 
Neugebauer, Stephanie O’Brien, Janet Levy, Dr. Gregory Clinton, Gregory Morris, Joseph Falkner, Arthur 
Healey, Kristin Anderson, Michele Betegga, Derrick Anderson and Wayne Edfors II as Amici Curiae on 
behalf of Respondents. 
 
Morrison & Foerster, Ruth N. Borenstein, Stuart C. Plunkett and Johnathan E. Mansfield for Marriage 
Equality California, Inc., and Twelve Married Same-Sex Couples as Amici Curiae on behalf of 
Respondents. 
 
Ann Miller Ravel, County Counsel (Santa Clara) and Martin H. Dodd, Assistant County Counsel, as 
Amicus Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
Dana McRae, County Counsel (Santa Cruz), Shannon M. Sullivan and Jason M. Heath, Assistant County 
Counsel, as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
Bingham McCutchen, John R. Reese, Matthew S. Gray, Susan Baker Manning, Huong T. Nguyen and 
Danielle Merida for Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom as Amicus Curiae on behalf of 
Respondents. 
 
National Center for Lesbian Rights, Shannon Minter, Courtney Joslin; Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe, 
Stephen V. Bomse, Richard DeNatale, Hilary E. Ware; ACLU of Southern California, Martha A. 
Matthews; Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, Jon W. Davidson, Jennifer C. Pizer; Steefel, Levitt 
& Weiss, Dena L. Narbaitz, Clyde J. Wadsworth; ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Tamara 
Lange, Alan I. Schlosser; Law Office of David C. Codell, David C. Codell and Aimee Dudovitz for Del 
Martin and Phyllis Lyon, Sarah Conner and Gillian Smith, Margot McShane and Alexandra D’Amario, 
Dave Scott Chandler and Jeffrey Wayne Chandler, Theresa Michelle Petry and Cristal Rivera-Mitchel, 
Lancy Woo and Cristy Chung, Joshua Rymer and Tim Frazer, Jewell Gomez and Diane Sabin, Myra Beals 
and Ida Matson, Arthur Frederick Adams and Devin Wayne Baker, Jeanne Rizzo and Pali Cooper, Our 
Family Coalition and Equality California as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
Roger Jon Diamond as Amicus Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
Law Offices of Peter D. Leposcopo and Peter D. Leposcopo for California Senators William J. (“Pete”) 
Knight, Dennis Hollingsworth, Rico Oller, Bill Morrow, Thomas McClintock, Dick Ackerman, Samuel 
Aanestad, Bob Margett, Ross Johnson, Jim F. Battin, Jr., California Assembly Members Ray Haynes, 
George A. Plescia, Tony Strickland, Bill Maze, Robert Pacheco, Doug La Malfa, Guy S. Houston, Steven 
N. Samuleian, Dave Codgill, Tom Harman, Dave Cox, Patricia C. Bates, Russ Bogh, Kevin McCarthy, 
Todd Spitzer, Alan Nakanishi, Keith S. Richman, Shirley Horton, Sharon Runner, Jay La Suer and Pacific 
Justice Institute as Amici Curiae on behalf of Respondents. 
 
 
 
 
 
3
 
 
 
 
Counsel who argued in Supreme Court (not intended for publication with opinion): 
 
Timothy M. Muscat 
Deputy Attorney General 
1300 I Street 
P.O. Box 944255 
Sacramento, CA  94244-2550 
(916) 445-7385 
 
Jordan W. Lorence 
Alliance Defense Fund 
15333 North Pima Road, Suite 165 
Scottsdale, AZ  85260 
(480) 444-0020 
 
Therese M. Stewart 
Chief Deputy City Attorney 
City Hall, Room 234 
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place 
San Francisco, CA  94102 
(415) 554-4700