> I don't think it would be unconstitutional ex-post-facto. Obergefell v. Hodges didn't define sex discrimination in marriage certificates unconstitutional after a certain date. It was always unconstitutional, and was recognized as such in their ruling.
Maybe not on some technicality, but the effect would be the same. Conduct that was reckoned to be legal (and in fact required by law) becomes retroactively illegal because of the new interpretation.
> How different a world would it be...
You'd have officials second guessing the law left and right, so it wouldn't be much of a law anymore. You can imagine situations where that might be good, but there are just as many (if not more) where that would be very bad.
You chose your examples, but there'd be others that may be less compelling to you: cities being forced to pay compensation because they tried to regulate gun ownership, retroactive holes in the budget because the individual mandate was declared unconstitutional. Those are just some thing I can think of off the top of my head. Is that how you want good faith efforts to solve problems treated?
I think this is a care where idealism and practicality are in a pretty severe conflict, and there have the be pretty strong limits on retroactivity.
Maybe not on some technicality, but the effect would be the same. Conduct that was reckoned to be legal (and in fact required by law) becomes retroactively illegal because of the new interpretation.
> How different a world would it be...
You'd have officials second guessing the law left and right, so it wouldn't be much of a law anymore. You can imagine situations where that might be good, but there are just as many (if not more) where that would be very bad.
You chose your examples, but there'd be others that may be less compelling to you: cities being forced to pay compensation because they tried to regulate gun ownership, retroactive holes in the budget because the individual mandate was declared unconstitutional. Those are just some thing I can think of off the top of my head. Is that how you want good faith efforts to solve problems treated?
I think this is a care where idealism and practicality are in a pretty severe conflict, and there have the be pretty strong limits on retroactivity.