News Analysis: Countdown to the Firing of SJC Judges 
Why Does Judge Marshall Believe She Deserves to Be Fired?
             It’s not just “rightwing nuts” who have been disturbed by Margaret Marshall’s violations of the state’s Constitution.
             Those upset include John Kerry and Michael Dukakis, as well as Robert Reich and Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for Governor in 2002.
(Jill Stein said at the time: “While I agree with the end result, I am troubled by the manner in which the legislature violated due process and the rights of citizens, misguided as those citizens might be.”)
             (The Democratic candidate for Governor, Shannon O'Brien, was the only one to say the Protection of Marriage Amendment should not be put to a vote of the citizens --- even though the state Constitution requires it and both Atty. General Tom Reilly and the Supreme Judicial Court had ruled that it is a proper measure for the voters to decide. This was the main reason O’Brien lost to Mitt Romney, according to the Globe.)
               All these people and more were troubled when Margaret Marshall and Pinch Sulzberger teamed together in 2002 to start a new “banana republic”:
              ● Michael Dukakis replied (on July 17, 2002) to a MassNews reporter as the former Governor was entering the State House, that what had just happened was not right. The legislature should not have adjourned without taking a vote on the Protection of Marriage Amendment. The former Governor said there should have been a vote.
              ● When Kerry was queried on “Meet the Press” a month earlier about whether a vote would be taken, the following conversation took place:
            Tim Russert: Would you allow a ballot referendum or support a ballot referendum in Massachusetts to allow people to vote yes or no on gay marriage?
            Sen. Kerry: Well, we actually have a ballot referendum this year that will go to the heart of the matter with respect to gay marriage.
            Russert: But it's being blocked by leaders of the state Legislature. Do you believe that the people of Massachusetts deserve a right to vote on it?
            Sen. Kerry: I think people always deserve a right to vote, and if you have a referendum process, Tim, people have a right to exercise it.
             Despite the concerns expressed by these and many others that we were now a lawless society, the leaders of the legislature still refused on July 17, 2002, to obey the Constitution. They would not allow a vote to be taken on the Protection of Marriage Amendment. The measure had obtained 76,607 signatures (only 57,100 were necessary) from people who were certified as authentic voters by the various town clerks. In other words, these voters were demanding that the issue be submitted to them at a November election.
             This meant that it was mandatory ---if the legislature was going to obey the law---  to move the Amendment on in order that the sponsors of the measure could obtain the required twenty-five percent approval of the legislators. If the legislators weren’t allowed to vote at all, it would be impossible to get the required twenty-five percent.
             Even the Globe wrote the day after the legislature violated the Constitution that the reason the legislature did so was because they knew that the people would approve the Amendment if they were allowed to vote. The Globe said: “The legislative opponents of the ballot question ... lacked the votes necessary to defeat it outright, instead they voted 137-53 to adjourn the constitutional convention indefinitely, effectively blocking the question from appearing on the election ballot."
             The Globe continued: “The ballot question appeared to have that support [25% of the legislators] and more, but no vote was taken on the question itself.”
             When Atty. Pawlick filed his suit in August 2002, the President of the Senate, Tom Birmingham, told Margaret Marshall’s Court that the Senate didn’t need to vote. But even Marshall’s Court rejected that argument and instructed the legislature and Gov. Swift to obey the law and take a vote before the end of 2002. Neither the legislature nor the Governor complied with that toothless Order from Judge Marshall.
             Atty. Pawlick filed another suit on January 2 of the following year, 2003, as he had expected he would have to do.