This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, June 28th, 2013. I'm Caleb Brown.

The Obama administration in California Governor Jerry Brown refused to provide a defense for laws

on the books. In one case it was the Defense of Marriage

Act in the other California's Proposition 8. The result, if allowed to continue, will be a large

aggrandizement of the executive branch at both the state and federal level.

So says Ilia Shapiro senior fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

Quite apart from the effect on gay marriage and what effect if any does Prop 8 still have in California

and where is it operative and who can get marriage licenses and so forth.

The decision based on standing actually gives a lot of power to executives, federal, but especially

at the state level.

That is, think about what the court did here. It said that because the

governor and attorney general of California declined to appeal or even defend Prop 8, nobody had standing to do so.

That means any time the governor and attorney general of a state or indeed of the United States, the President and the Attorney General,

all they have to do is ask one of their friends to file a lawsuit against that particular law

and then decline to defend it in court. That was also an issue in the

Windsor case remember because Attorney General Holder at President Obama's

order declined to defend DOMA at a certain provision.

And we can discuss whether that was proper or not, but luckily in this case, even though I'm

against DOMA Section 3, I'm against Prop 8, but I think that courts should treat actual cases and controversies

and decide the merits of these cases.

The House of Representatives provided a group to defend DOMA.

And the Republicans were in the majority, at least in the House, and therefore they could

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