Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog reads the tea leaves of the Ninth Circuit’s granting of a stay in Perry v. Schwarzenegger at the ACSBlog. His bottom line: The grant of the stay request by the motions panel tells us very little about the Ninth Circuit’s likely resolution of the merits.
for those who want to predict what will happen in the appellate courts, there’s really very little to go on so far. Certainly we should not rely on a procedural order containing no written rationale offered by a different set of decisionmakers than the judges who will decide the merits of the appeal.
He also suggests that the stay, by slowing down the pace of the case, may ultimately help opponents of Prop. 8.
It is entirely possible for a few years to elapse before the case could get to the Supreme Court. By then, public opinion could shift more firmly toward gay marriage, and it is possible that such an emerging social consensus could influence Justice Kennedy toward striking down Proposition 8.
Eugene noted Prof. Hasen’s pre-order thoughts on the stay request here.