NORTH CAROLINA: GOP Hires NOM Chairman John Eastman To Fight Marriage

NOM chairman John Eastman has been hired by North Carolina's GOP leaders to fight the enactment of same-sex marriage. He's got a track record, people!

House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate President Phil Berger reportedly have hired a conservative California legal expert to lead the effort. John Eastman, a former Republican candidate for attorney general in California, is the former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif. He is also chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, a group involved in the legal defense of traditional unions between a man and a woman. U.S. District Judge William Osteen notified the other parties in the case that Potter called Wednesday to say that the legislature “intends to file a motion to intervene” on Thursday. “The court will address that issue tomorrow (Thursday),” the judge’s office said in an email.

Questions to Berger’s office on the decision to hire Eastman and whether he will be paid were not immediately answered. In 2013, the General Assembly passed law giving its leaders the authority to mount their own defense when the state is sued. Lawmakers took the step after the attorney general in three other states announced they would no longer defend the state’s marriage laws. Osteen must approve any intervention by the legislators, and legal experts says there is no guarantee he will do so unless attorneys for the General Assembly can open some new legal argument. That appears unlikely, UNC law professor Maxine Eichner said this week. “There is nothing at issue that hasn’t already been decided,” she said.

(Tipped by JMG reader Rob)