Fault Lines - Gauging mayor’s engaging future

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POSTED May 15, 10:04 PM

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom did his best not to put the historic state Supreme Court decision giving same-sex couples a constitutional right to marry in political terms — but I think it’s fair to say that for someone who has been struggling to find an issue to catapult him into higher office, he found one Thursday.

San Francisco’s values — which have been beaten about the head and ears by a host of politicians in recent years — got a huge affirmation. Yet, outside of all those people who have been waiting to sign a binding legal document announcing their union together, no one scored a bigger victory Thursday than Newsom, who, according to the highest court in the state, was right when he announced that the state’s policy on same-sex marriage was discriminatory and began issuing marriage certificates in 2004.

Newsom has been openly musing about running for governor after his mayoral term ends. He doesn’t have to muse anymore.

“This is like placing a set of booster rockets on the Newsom-for-governor campaign,” said political consultant Dan Schnur, a former state Republican strategist who served as communications chief for Sen. John McCain’s presidential bid in 2000. “It’s something that helps him hugely in a Democratic primary.”

It’s still to early to see how the court ruling will play out, especially now that conservative groups will be more emboldened to try and pass a statewide measure in November to place a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. But that will just serve as a larger bully pulpit for Newsom — who can happily point out that there are six Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court that struck down the state’s discriminatory marriage policy.

“It’s definitely beneficial that it’s a Republican-nominated court,” said Bruce Cain, a UC Berkeley political science professor who run’s the university’s Washington Center. “But it also validates a view that he took before it became a popular issue.”

If Newsom seemed a bit giddy during interviews and news conferences Thursday, it’s partly in the knowledge that despite the incessant bickering and sniping from his former colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, the court decision essentially returns him to the rock-star status he enjoyed when he initially issued marriage certificates at City Hall.

Newsom said “the Constitution is the biggest winner” Thursday. He came in a close second.