Koppelman on the Colorado cake wars

Andy Koppelman writes about Autumn Scardina and her lawsuit against Jack Phillips and Masterpiece Cakeshop (pending before the Colorado Supreme Court). Koppelman criticizes Scardina for "provok[ing] pointless fights" and offering the Court an opportunity to impose vague-but-bad expansions of free speech or limits on antidiscrimination law.

I have written about this lawsuit here and in our private-enforcement articles. Scardina's litigation demonstrates the commonality ubiquity, and liberal acceptance of defensive constitutional litigation. Like abortion providers and advocates under SB8, Phillips was forced to refuse to bake the cake, get sued, and assert his federal constitutional rights as a defense to liability in state court (so far unsuccessfully).* Unlike with abortion providers and advocates, liberal academics and advocates did not complain about the process or argue that the procedural posture of this case denied the federal courts the opportunity to engage in judicial review or Phillips the opportunity to vindicate his constitutional right.

[*] Colorado's civil rights law mixes public enforcement through the Civil Rights Commission and private enforcement through civil litigation. The Civil Rights Commission began proceedings against Phillips on Scardina's complaint; it dismissed that effort when Phillips brought a federal action to enjoin the proceeding and the federal court declined to abstain, citing Younger's bad-faith exception. Scardina then filed suit in state court.

But there is more to this. Rocky and I are working on piece # 5 in this series on private enforcement, arguing that public accommodation laws and "expressive products" offer the Blue-state counterpart to SB8 and the opportunity for a campaign of actual or threatened litigation to undermine constitutionally protected-but-locally unpopular right-wing conduct of refusing to provide certain products for certain customers. And this context is easier SB8 and other recent Red-State efforts--anyone can order a cake with a simple phone call (or many cakes with many phone calls). Koppelman's objection to Scardina's campaign (he calls it "reprehensible") shows why Blue states are unlikely to take this step. Koppleman is a liberal who believes in balancing LGBT+ rights and religious liberty. He, and other Democratic officials, may not want open legal warfare.