If Jim Baxa becomes Lubbock County Clerk, he will not sign a marriage certificate for same-sex couples but also would not stop someone else in the office from signing one, he told LubbockLights.com the day after a candidate forum.
Susan Rowley, Justice of the Peace for Precinct 2, asked Baxa and his fellow Republican opponents in the March 3 Texas primary election – Sandy Garcia and Rebeca Gonzales – about the issue at the South Overton forum attended by about 20 people which also featured candidates in other races.
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“I said, ‘Can you all three answer yes or no? Are you planning on giving, allowing marriage licenses to people that are the same sex?’” Rowley said to LubbockLights.com the day after.
Garcia and Gonzales said they would. Baxa’s answer was more nuanced.
“My compliance with that is under duress at this point,” Baxa said to LubbockLights.com the following day.
Baxa and Rowley disagreed on what law should get higher priority – Texas or the U.S. Supreme Court – following the High Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling.
Rowley, who is both an incumbent Justice of the Peace and attorney, said, “He thinks the Supreme Court was wrong and that Texas has it right. And he doesn’t care what the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution says.”
“The Supremacy Clause refers to the foundational principle that, in general, federal law takes precedence over any conflicting state law.”
Source: Cornell Law School website
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Baxa has been open about his opposition to same sex marriage, Rowley said, so she wanted to ask the question.
“He’s professed himself. He spoke all the time about how … no wedding should be with the same sex,” Rowley said.
Baxa said, “It was definitely an ambush by some Democrats and one moderate Republican that were at that event that were ready to attack me on that issue.”
Baxa also told LubbockLights.com he’s the real conservative in the race while one of his opponents said he doesn’t really understand how the clerk’s office works, which we’ll get into more detail below.
This stems from Obergefell v. Hodges in 2015
Baxa’s “duress” comes from a 2015 United States Supreme Court ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges. The high court ruled states must offer marriage to couples of the same sex.
The Supreme Court was wrong in their interpretation when they made the Obergefell decision. And the law of the land is not written by courts but is written by legislatures.
Jim Baxa
Baxa recalled his answer to the forum, saying, “I said the law of the land is the Texas Constitution, which says that marriage is a union between a man and a woman only. And the Supreme Court was wrong in their interpretation when they made the Obergefell decision. And the law of the land is not written by courts but is written by legislatures.”
Shortly after the Obergefell ruling, a Texas Attorney General opinion said, “A federal district court … enjoined the state from enforcing Texas laws that define marriage as exclusively a union between one man and one woman.”
That same opinion said clerks across the state could make accommodations for an employee who did not want to issue a same-sex marriage certificate. But same-sex couples were entitled to the “same terms” of marriage as opposite-sex couples, the opinion further explained.
Baxa explained he would not force an employee of the clerk’s office to sign a same-sex marriage certificate, but he would not prevent employees from signing either.
“That would be up to their consciences,” Baxa said.
While Baxa said he would not likely be called upon to sign a certificate, others in the office would. He said there would be no reason for a lawsuit against Lubbock County if he wins election as county clerk because one way or another the clerk’s office would provide the marriage certificate to a same-sex couple.
I don’t want any Lubbock County citizen feeling like they’re going to walk into the county clerk’s office and they’re going to feel ashamed.
Sandy garcia
Garcia saw the issue differently when she spoke to LubbockLights.com
“Number one, we’re going to follow the law. Number two, I don’t want any Lubbock County citizen feeling like they’re going to walk into the county clerk’s office and they’re going to feel ashamed. Everyone is welcome,” Garcia said.
When I started in the office, I took an oath to uphold what would be required of me to do my job.
Rebeca gonzales
Gonzales told LubbockLights.com, “When I started in the office, I took an oath to uphold what would be required of me to do my job. I have my faith, and I have my beliefs. And it is part of my job, and I’ll do it because it’s part of my duty.”
“It is one of the questions asked during an interview process. One of the things that we have to do in this job is issue licenses to same-sex couples. ‘Will that be a problem for you?’ … If it were to be an issue to someone, then we could see if there’s another position that they might want to work in,” Gonzales said.
Baxa said he wants his answer to show the separation between himself – “the conservative” and “my two opponents as more moderate persons.”
“One of them stated that she has been signing these as a low-level clerk and has no problem with signing them. … The other one actually seemed to be celebrating the position of same-sex marriage,” Baxa said.
Garcia said, “He kept trying to basically say that it wasn’t a law, that only Congress can pass a law.”
Baxa said, “I actually disagree with the concept that is foreign to our Constitution that courts get to decide what is constitutional and what is not. That is actually left to the states and the people by the 10th Amendment because the Constitution is silent on who decides what is constitutional. … The federal court cannot ever overrule the Texas Constitution.”
Running the clerk’s office
Baxa believes his conservatism goes further than just one issue as he’d like to find ways to spend less money.
“My opponents want to spend more of the taxpayer money on the county clerk’s office by hiring more employees and giving those employees raises as well as spending more on supplies in the office. Whereas, I want to control spending, become more efficient so that we need fewer employees, not more,” Baxa said.
Garcia said Baxa has a misunderstanding of how many employees work in the office and how much money it takes to maintain quality service.
“The jobs that we do affect everyone in Lubbock County at some point in their life. I want to know that whoever is running that understands the office. … You don’t want someone to come in that really has no idea as to what we do,” Garcia said.
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