County Clerk Describes the Long and Yet Rapid Road from Protest to Legalized Marriage - It was February of 2007, more than 18 months before voters would pass Prop 8 banning same-sex marriage, when Yol ...

In an interview with Yolo County Clerk Freddie Oakley that will be run on Monday, she told the Vanguard on Friday morning that she expected the stay to be lifted within 23 days.  Little did she realiz ...

There has been a lot of talk following the Supreme Court ruling on the Prop 8 case about the issue of standing.  Some have suggested that Governor Jerry Brown screwed up by refusing to defend Prop 8 ( ...

Court Sidesteps Broader Issue of Constitutionality in Prop 8: In the end, the court narrowly struck down DOMA 5-4 while it punted on the broader question of Prop 8's constitutionality and simply argue ...

In the 1990s, it appeared that a conservative tide was moving through on social issues.  In 1994, California overwhelmingly passed Prop 187, adding severe restrictions on benefits to illegal immigrant ...

by Yolo County ACLU, et al We, the undersigned Davis community groups, seek to restore our democracy by speaking out against Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal yea ...

By Patrick C. Toomey The ACLU and Yale Law School's Media Freedom and Information Clinic filed a motion today with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), seeking the release of secret cou ...

This week, two seemingly unrelated stories have continued on a national level.  One is a controversial 5-4 decision by the US Supreme Court, and the other is the still-burgeoning "scandal" which shows ...

I have read a lot of deadpanning of the Affordable Care Act before the system has even been implemented.  Truth be told, it was not my favored approach.  I have no idea if it will work.  But I would l ...

Nearly 50 years ago, as President Lyndon Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act, he remarked to Bill Moyers, "We just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come."  It was ...

by Peter Scheer The Justice Department has been getting hammered in (and by) the press over a leak investigation involving the seizure of emails from the personal gmail account of James Rosen, a repor ...

This week I got into an interesting text exchange from an old friend challenging me on Obama's less than acceptable record on civil liberties.  The problem that my friend had is that I largely agree w ...

Perhaps it is the long and destructive decade in the war on terror, but there is a marked shift in public opinion.  Pollsters note that, following the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City and the 9/11 attack ...

A look at the Public Safety Exception to Miranda - It was a long and traumatic week for the country last week - a week that began with the tragic bombings and ended with the dramatic capture of 19-yea ...