prospect of other federal challenges to Proposition 8 jumping out ahead of theirs, did not want to wait to file until after the California Supreme Court had ruled. But Chad, the expert on messaging and news cycles, knew it would not look good to announce a federal lawsuit on behalf of same-sex couples before the state’s high court had even ruled against them. The plan was to announce it with maximum fanfare directly after the ruling; it would be ruined if it dribbled out.
So they had sent Monagas, the youngest and least-known lawyer on the team, to the courthouse that day. He was under orders to slip the paperwork in just under the court’s 3:30 P.M. filing deadline, with the hope that the court would close before the lawsuit could attract any media attention.
As he sat on a bench biding his time, Monagas thought about all that had brought him to this point. Born in Puerto Rico, he had pursued a career in theater design before deciding to study law. As a thirty-three-year-old fourth-year associate, he had never imagined he would be involved in a case of this import, much less one so personal.
That morning, in the San Francisco apartment he shared with his husband, Jason, Monagas had looked in on their eighteen-month-old daughter, Elisa, as she slept in her crib, blond curly hair damp and tousled. The two men had wed before Proposition 8 had passed and had been blessed to be able to quickly adopt. But they worried that Elisa would grow up in a world where their family was not universally accepted. If gays and lesbians were able to marry, Monagas thought, it would go a long way toward dispelling their concern.
As the 3:30 P.M. deadline for filing complaints drew closer, he grew increasingly antsy. The clerk seemed puzzled by his presence in the empty room, asking him several times if he needed help. “No, no, just waiting on an edit,” he said, by way of an excuse. But when a few people sauntered into the room, threatening to form a line ahead of him just as the court was about to close, he leaped up and, scurrying around them, thrust the paperwork at the clerk.
“This must be an important filing,” she said, bemused at his apparent agitation.
“I don’t know—I haven’t even read it,” he quickly dissembled.
The clerk entered the case into her computer system, which randomly assigns cases to judges with the aim of ensuring equal caseloads. As she began stamping the paperwork, Monagas noticed the initials VRW and, grabbing his BlackBerry, e-mailed the rest of the team.
The case, he wrote, had been assigned to the chief judge of the U.S. district court, Vaughn R. Walker. The team had worried that it would go to someone whom critics could easily label a San Francisco liberal, which would diminish a victory at the trial level. But Judge Walker was a Republican appointee, first nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan.
Walker’s nomination had been fiercely opposed by gay groups because of his representation of the U.S. Olympic Committee in a trademark suit that prevented a Bay Area group from calling its athletic competition the Gay Olympic Games. Walker, then in private practice, had managed to slap a lienon the home of the group’s founder, who was at the time dying of AIDS, sparking outrage in the community. The groups had held up his nomination for so long that George H. W. Bush had become president by the time he won confirmation.
The Olympics case did not trouble Olson. Intellectual property was a complex area of the law, one that had nothing to do with where the judge might come down in a civil rights case. And on the bench, Walker had compiled a record as a bit of a maverick. While in some ways a law-and-order man, he had allowed reporters to watch all stages of the state’s lethal injection executions. His record suggested that he did not think voters should always have the final say: He had overturned a San Francisco voter-approved limit on ATM fees.
He was tough and blunt, suggesting to
So they had sent Monagas, the youngest and least-known lawyer on the team, to the courthouse that day. He was under orders to slip the paperwork in just under the court’s 3:30 P.M. filing deadline, with the hope that the court would close before the lawsuit could attract any media attention.
As he sat on a bench biding his time, Monagas thought about all that had brought him to this point. Born in Puerto Rico, he had pursued a career in theater design before deciding to study law. As a thirty-three-year-old fourth-year associate, he had never imagined he would be involved in a case of this import, much less one so personal.
That morning, in the San Francisco apartment he shared with his husband, Jason, Monagas had looked in on their eighteen-month-old daughter, Elisa, as she slept in her crib, blond curly hair damp and tousled. The two men had wed before Proposition 8 had passed and had been blessed to be able to quickly adopt. But they worried that Elisa would grow up in a world where their family was not universally accepted. If gays and lesbians were able to marry, Monagas thought, it would go a long way toward dispelling their concern.
As the 3:30 P.M. deadline for filing complaints drew closer, he grew increasingly antsy. The clerk seemed puzzled by his presence in the empty room, asking him several times if he needed help. “No, no, just waiting on an edit,” he said, by way of an excuse. But when a few people sauntered into the room, threatening to form a line ahead of him just as the court was about to close, he leaped up and, scurrying around them, thrust the paperwork at the clerk.
“This must be an important filing,” she said, bemused at his apparent agitation.
“I don’t know—I haven’t even read it,” he quickly dissembled.
The clerk entered the case into her computer system, which randomly assigns cases to judges with the aim of ensuring equal caseloads. As she began stamping the paperwork, Monagas noticed the initials VRW and, grabbing his BlackBerry, e-mailed the rest of the team.
The case, he wrote, had been assigned to the chief judge of the U.S. district court, Vaughn R. Walker. The team had worried that it would go to someone whom critics could easily label a San Francisco liberal, which would diminish a victory at the trial level. But Judge Walker was a Republican appointee, first nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan.
Walker’s nomination had been fiercely opposed by gay groups because of his representation of the U.S. Olympic Committee in a trademark suit that prevented a Bay Area group from calling its athletic competition the Gay Olympic Games. Walker, then in private practice, had managed to slap a lienon the home of the group’s founder, who was at the time dying of AIDS, sparking outrage in the community. The groups had held up his nomination for so long that George H. W. Bush had become president by the time he won confirmation.
The Olympics case did not trouble Olson. Intellectual property was a complex area of the law, one that had nothing to do with where the judge might come down in a civil rights case. And on the bench, Walker had compiled a record as a bit of a maverick. While in some ways a law-and-order man, he had allowed reporters to watch all stages of the state’s lethal injection executions. His record suggested that he did not think voters should always have the final say: He had overturned a San Francisco voter-approved limit on ATM fees.
He was tough and blunt, suggesting to
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