In particular, Pelosi criticized the proposition for restricting rights.
"Today's ruling by the Supreme Court in support of Proposition 8 is deeply disappointing because this ballot initiative takes away individual rights," Pelosi said.
Pelosi also reiterated her support of same-sex marriage.
"I have long fought for equality for all of California's families and will strongly support efforts to restore marriage equality in California," she said.
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"Unfortunately, with this decision, I am concerned that we are back to square one on the issue of equal rights for same-sex couples," Boxer said in a statement.
Boxer also criticized the court's ruling that bans same-sex marriage going forward but continues to recognize the marriages of the 18,000 same-sex couples who have already been married.
"This ruling sets up a very unfair reality in California where some same-sex couples will have their marriages affirmed, while many more will be denied their fundamental rights," she said.
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A subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing next week on the so-called "torture memos," the first public hearing on the legal memoranda since the administration made them public.
According to a committee press release, the hearing, slated for next Wednesday, will focus on the "legal analysis used to authorize harsh interrogation techniques, the ineffectiveness of those techniques, and the standards governing lawyers' professional conduct applicable to those who authorized the procedures."
The only two witnesses announced so far are Ali Soufan, a former FBI interrogator, and Phillip Zelikow, Counselor to the State Department in the Bush administration and Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission.
Both Soufan and Zelikow have been critical of the Bush administration's interrogation techniques. Soufan recently published a NY Times op-ed criticizing the techniques authorized in the memos and claiming that Abu Zubaydah, whom Soufan himself interrogated, had co-operated before waterboarding was used.
The underlying absurdity of the administration's position can be summarized this way. Once you get to a substantive compliance analysis for "cruel, inhuman, and degrading" you get the position that the substantive standard is the same as it is in analogous U.S. constitutional law. So the OLC must argue, in effect, that the methods and the conditions of confinement in the CIA program could constitutionally be inflicted on American citizens in a county jail.
Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) says he's open to criminal prosecutions of Bush officials who crafted the legal justifications for waterboarding.
Speaking to a group of bloggers, Dodd said either the Judiciary Committee or Intelligence Committee should review the interrogation process, and if wrongdoing is discovered, prosecutions should follow.
"If people in fact did something that was illegal, they should be pursued," Dodd said.
Dodd admitted the idea might be unpopular, but he compared possible prosecutions to the Nuremberg Trials for Nazis and said the rule of law must prevail.
"I know people don't want to go back, and it's uncomfortable," Dodd said, adding: "My father was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials. They were not a popular idea."
Dodd said the example of Nuremberg demonstrates the need for accountability, dismissing the idea that "we're just going to kind of wash our hands."
Newly appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who has come under fire from her former House colleagues for her support of gun rights, keeps two rifles under her bed, she recently told Newsday.
"If I want to protect my family, if I want to have a weapon in the home, that should be my right," she said.
An Gillibrand aide told Newsday that New York does not require rifles to be registered.
Gillibrand's stand on gun rights has already become a critical issue during her short tenure as a senator. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), who husband was killed in a Long Island shooting in 1993, has said she is considering challenge Gillibrand in the 2010 Democratic primary because Gillibrand's support of gun rights. Gillibrand is also clearly working to counter that line of attack, appearing recently at a high school of a student that was killed in a gang shoot out.
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As a bipartisan group of senators works to cut $100 billion out the stimulus bill that has grown to more than $920 billion, President Barack Obama (D) said Thursday evening that he believes the bill will be finalized around $800 billion.
Aboard Air Force One in route to the House Democrats retreat in Williamsburg, Va., Obama told reporters he thinks the bill will end up around $800 billion.
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said she is hopeful that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), if elected, will sign her equal right amendment measure.
Maloney said her bill language into the Democratic Party's platform.
Maloney's measure, which has 204 cosponsors, proposes an amendment to the U.S. Constitution relative to equal rights for men and women.
She added that the platform this year is the most "pro-woman" platform in history. Maloney initially backed Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) for president.
The platform also endorsed her controversial bill that seeks to crack down on the credit card industry, Maloney said.
That bill, which has 155 cosponsors and has moved through the Financial Services Committee, is opposed by the credit card industry and banking groups.
Asked if it her credit card bill could get 218 votes for passage on the floor, Maloney said it could get over 300 votes.
Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin (D) is working on a Senate version of an apology for slavery.
Harkin said he is working with Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas on the resolution and he has yet to formally announce the proposal but anticipates it could hit the Senate floor in September. In the House, Harkin has been negotiating with Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
"I've been working on it, and I have the companion bill on that," Harkin said.
"Look, we've apologized to Native Americans. We apologized to the Hawaiians, for overthrowing their king. We've apologized to Japanese-Americans. We did all that. But the biggest blot on America was slavery. It was condoned by the Constitution, condoned by our early governments, condoned by business. We fought a very bloody civil war over it, and there were Jim Crow laws after that. We can't do anything about that, and reparations are out of the question. But what we can do is say, 'Look, in this day and age today, we recognize how wrong that was.'"
"We owe an apology to every descendent of slaves today because of what happened, because it set them back so far. Our commitment now ought to be to make sure we have laws for equal opportunity and equal access, education, all the things like that that can try to close that gap and move African-Americans in our society as forward as possible."
The two most influential women in Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), rallied outside the Capitol Thursday with women lawmakers and dozens of howling supporters.
The event marks the first time Pelosi and Clinton have staged a joint appearance since the divisive Democratic primary came to an end. And it's part of an ongoing Democratic effort to shore up women support by touting a so-called "checklist for change" calling for equal pay, among other things.
One thing the lawmakers did not discuss was abortion rights, a divisive and bedrock Democratic issue.
Pelosi said she was honored to be rallying with Clinton.
The Democrats are trying to use the equal pay issue to show a contrast between the two parties. Senate Republicans blocked a bill this year to overturn a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling against Lilly Ledbetter who claimed she was the victim of gender pay discrimination.
Clinton introduced Ledbetter, saying "We owe a great debt of gratitude to this great women."
Ledbetter said, "This is not a Democratic or Republican issue, this is a fairness issue."
At the end of the rally, the crowd screamed: "Equal pay, yes. Discrimination, no."
The mostly female audience lined up to take pictures and get Clinton's autograph after the event.
Republican Congressman Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) responded yesterday to a proposal by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) that would limit members' ability to post content on blogs and websites like YouTube by, ironically, releasing a video on YouTube.
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