rational basis review

A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction of Texas' state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, the Associated Press reports.

It appears that Judge Orlando Garcia may have applied the lowest level of constitutional scrutiny, rational basis, in reaching the decison. According to the AP, Garcia opined: "'Without a rational relation to a legitimate governmental purpose, state-imposed inequality can find no refuge in our United States Constitution. These Texas laws deny plaintiffs access to the institution of marriage and its numerous rights, privileges, and responsibilities for the sole reason that Plaintiffs wish to be married to a person of the same sex.'"

That means that Garcia didn't even have to find that being LGBT is a classification that would trigger a higher, more protective standard of review.

After Pennsylvania state-court judges lost their challenge in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to the constitutionality of the requirement that they retire in the year that they turn 70, they now have lost in federal court too, The Legal Intelligencer reports. The federal judge rejected both their equal protection and due process claims, citing binding precedent. The judge also rejected arguments that he should apply a higher standard of review than rational basis and that the US Supreme Court's holding in United States v. Windsor rejecting the federal Defense Of Marriage Act provided more support for the judicial plaintiffs' position. There also are bills pending in the General Assembly to put constitutional amendments before voters on either eliminating judicial retirement altogether or to raise the mandatory retirement age to 75.