All posts by jbridges16

Health Care

Read the Bill—or how I got through 700 bills in 7 days

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(I’ve been wanting to write something about this for a long time, but here’s an informed opinion from a former legislator. In my view, this bottleneck is designed to vest power in the leadership – if they wanted more time for the process, maybe the Assembly wouldn’t have taken a month off just a month ago! – and ought to be a part of any reform agenda to make California even moderately governable. – promoted by David Dayen)

This article written by: Former Assemblymember, Hannah- Beth Jackson of Speak Out California

There is little doubt that watching legislation work its way through the process is much like watching sausage being made. The bottom line is: You don’t want to watch. Although theoretically it is interesting, informative and exciting to see the democratic process of law-making take form, in reality there is so much push-and-pull, give-and-take and last minute backroom dealing that it’s impossible to follow. It’s often impossible to understand.

So when the Speaker of the Assembly asks his members to “read the bill” when debating the frenetically altered and re-altered health care reform measure, AB8, it’s asking for a logical response to an impossible situation. How can one read a bill that comes to your desk literally “hot off the press”, so hot that you can warm your hands on the paper? How can you understand what’s there when it deals with a convoluted system in a convoluted way—with no opportunity to vet the latest in a series of compromises, re-writes and reformulated policy?

Granted, the efforts are the result of hard-fought and truly late-night negotiations, but there has been little time to analyze the possible impacts and “unintended consequences” of legislating at the 11th hour, with dozens of special interest groups hovering over the negotiations and dozens of people trying to craft language that fits the proverbial square peg into a round hole. That’s exactly what the end of session looks like on a good day. But here we’ve got what is billed as a major overhaul of the healthcare system in California, a measure that will lead the nation in healthcare reform. Really? Has anyone read the entire bill in its final form? Highly unlikely.

Having been there at the end of each of six legislative years, my bet’s on the fact that even the authors of AB 8 haven’t read it in its final form. How many pages is it? How many hours have people been up without sufficient sleep so they can even think straight? How do the final amendments affect earlier amendments? Does this create a seamless system or one with glitches, omissions, administrative nightmares, unexpected costs? Is it like some of the old American cities that were built piecemeal, like my hometown of Boston where the old joke goes,”You want to go three blocks down the street?….Well, you can’t get there from here.”

Much credit must be given to those dozens of staffers, stakeholders and legislators who have worked hard to put together this compromise mishmash of who pays for what, who’s covered by whom and when and how. This is a compromise bill for a system that needs an overhaul that takes the real villain out of the process entirely–the health insurance industry. But the Governor won’t hear of it–after all, the insurance industry is among his biggest supporters-and they give lots of money to both sides as well. And we have a governor who has vetoed the best chance at real reform and real coverage of all Californians when he vetoed Senator Sheila Kuehl’s SB840 last year. Her bill is the true reform, providing universal health coverage-similar to the Medicare system that has worked so well in this country for decades. But no matter, AB8 deals with the reality that we have a Republican governor who will hear nothing of removing profit from our health care delivery system. So AB8 is the compromise effort.

But with the clock ticking down, nerves fraying and concentration fading with exhaustion, the legislature is whirling through hundreds of bills, many of which have been totally “gutted” and rewritten with entirely new issues and language. This is an ugly time of year to watch the legislative process in action. And we’ve been very lucky over the years that so few mistakes have been made as a result. Of course, when they have, the mistakes can be enormous–remember the energy deregulation plan that was approved at midnight on the last night of session many years ago? I suspect no one read the bill then. As a result of the rush-to-judgment mentality that year, billions of dollars were extorted from Californians by companies like Enron among many others, a governor was recalled and rate-payers today continue to pay for that debacle.

It is hard to watch the goings-on in these last, crazy days, let alone be part of it. The most important part of legislating, I was told when I first arrived in Sacramento as a new Assemblymember, was to “do no harm.” I hope that this message was passed along to all the membership and that at the end of this year, they will not have done any as well. In the meantime, we can only hold our collective breath and hope.

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While California Dreams- Weekly Update Vol.1, No.14

This article written by: Former Assemblymember, Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California

A weekly update on the goings-on in Sacramento
For the week ending September 8, 2007

Key bills and issues we’ve been following during the
past week and beyond

The first of the final two weeks of the regular session is now done, with hundreds of bills having been heard and or otherwise disposed of.  Healthcare, predictably continues to be front and center. The environment has seen some good news and bad, while civil rights–for both the gay community and working women round out the headline grabbers for the week.

Ballot initiatives and threats of same continue to be bandied about, while the Republican play to steal yet another presidential election is taking on broader national attention as its implications for Republicans holding the White House become known. Term Limits has dodged a bullet and will now appear on the February ballot, creating greater pressure to get a redistricting measure passed before the coming recess.  And the Perata Iraq initiative sits on the Governor’s desk, most likely facing a veto. Of course, the Gov didn’t endear himself to his party this weekend at the Republican state convention, but that is of little concern as the Reps continue on a downward spiral in this state.

So let’s get to the details:

SB840/Universal Health Care and AB8 .

With all the hype about AB 8, Senator Kuehl’s true reform healthcare measure, calling for a Medicare type system to cover all Californians and still have us choose our own doctors, appears to be DOA on Schwarzenegger’s desk. With the legislature’s leaders heavily in negotiations with the Governor on a bill that keeps the insurance industry well in the game, there is just no way to fix this truly broken health care system. With a private, for-profit health INSURANCE industry in place, the only move that can be made essentially requires us to try to shove a square peg into a round hole. It can’t be done, but that isn’t deterring them from trying. For an excellent piece on why this process is not the answer, please go here: http://blog.bayneweb…

Schwarzenegger is insisting that everyone have health insurance. This is NOT universal healthcare, it is universal insurance- whether people can afford it or not. This deference to the insurance industry is maddening for those who realize the private companies are a major part of the problem and need to come out of the equation completely. Nonetheless, there have been concessions of transparency where the insurance companies would have to reveal what they pay and where the dollars that they rake in go.

The negotiations are complicated and keep changing almost by the minute. Rather than give you a play-by-play on all the moving parts, let’s break this down to the core issue in all this: Who will pay the bulk of the health care costs and who will be covered by the program? With so many major players in the mix –the hospitals, big and small employers, workers, the poor, doctors and healthcare providers, federal dollars, etc. there is real concern that we could be rushing into another end-of-session energy-deregulation type debacle.

With that in mind, there are those who are urging the leadership and legislature to go slow, and allow the governor to call a special session (he can do it anyway) and try to think through the process more carefully and deliberatively. Another option considered is to put an initiative on the ballot that addresses the funding mechanism, since there is no way the obstinate and out-of-touch right wing that has a hold on the Republican Senators will even consider such a mechanism—even if those having to belly-up are willing to pay! For more on this aspect of the story, check out this article at the California Progress Report, as well as Julia Rosen’s piece here.

Environmental efforts

While two important environmental bills apparently delayed until next year’s session, a major breakthrough has occurred on the water/flood control scene. A package of bills reflecting a compromise has been reached which will address the uncontrolled development on flood-prone lands in the Central Valley region without imposing moratoriums on construction or impeding local economic growth. The dam on overhauling the state’s antiquated and ineffective approach to flood protection and water planning appears to have been broken—-or so the claims go. For an analysis of what this compromise looks like, click here for the SacBee article and here for the California Progress Report’s coverage.

Sadly, two other key environmental bills that we’ve been touting haven’t made it through the process this year. One is Senator Alan Lowenthal’s  SB974, an important bill to clean up the air near the ports of California– Long Beach , L.A. and Oakland . For more on this story,please visit our blog: http://speakoutca.or…

The other is Senator Joe Simitian’s SB 412, which would require that California establish the need for LNG plants before allowing them to be built in the state. Seems like a no-brainer, but this bill got in the cross-hairs of end-of-session wrangling between the Senate and Assembly. While Speak Out California has been urging the leadership to move this bill back onto the floor for a vote, we’re still waiting. If you would like to help by sending emails to Speaker Nunez, go to our action alert to sign up here.  We’ve also blogged here on this issue: http://speakoutca.or…

For more information about the successes and failures of other measures, California Report’s chief Frank Russo has done a yeoman’s job of covering them here.

Civil Rights push for gay marriage and workforce equity

The Governor will see AB 43, Mark Leno’s gay marriage bill back on his desk again this year. For the second time, the Legislature, on a strictly party-line vote, has passed this measure and will likely see the governor veto it again. This is a hard sell, with the Governor having ducked the measure last year, saying the Court should decide. The Supreme Court turned around and said the legislature should decide. Well, they have. Governor?

Two measures that we’ve been following on our weblog over the past few weeks have now passed both houses and are on their way to the Governor’s desk. The first, AB 437, by Assemblymember Dave Jones, ensures that victims of pay discrimination continue to have a fair opportunity to seek redress in the courts. The measure clarifies that the time period for alleging pay discrimination claims runs from the date of each payment of a discriminatory wage.

The second, AB435 by Assemblymember Julia Brownley, addresses workplace discrimination against women. The measure extends the statue of limitations for an employee in order to file a civil action against an employer for wage discrimination and also extends the time period that an employer is required to maintain wage and job classification records.

Click here for more on both these measures.

Initiatives on the move

Without a doubt, the most talked-about initiative this week is the transparent attempt by the Republican party to co-opt California’s 55 electoral votes in order to swing the next presidential election back to them. The initiative is couched in pleasant and reasonable language; talking about fairness and every vote counting, etc. But there is nothing fair about this initiative, designed to replace California’s winner-take-all system of handing all its electoral votes to the state’s popular vote winner (as is done in 48 other states) with a system that gives electoral votes by congressional district popular vote. Bottom line: In a state where the Reps have about a snowball’s chance of winning, this measure, if passed, would send them home with about 20-22 of the state’s 55 electoral votes. It is a cynical and serious plot to keep the White House, even though they haven’t really WON the presidency since 1988.

The Dems are rightly, crying foul here. This past week, National Democratic Party Chair, Howard Dean called this, “just another Republican attempt to rig an election.” Check out the San Francisco Chronicle article here. Unless enough people know about this ploy, the measure will likely qualify for the ballot and cost the Dems between $10-20 million to kill it, moving money from places it would otherwise be spent for democratic candidates and issues. Likely exactly what the Reps had in mind when they pulled this stunt. Smells a lot like Karl Rove is still alive and well.

When we reported last week’s edition of While California Dreams, it appeared that the Term Limits/Extension initiative might not make it onto the ballot because it appeared to lack the required number of signatures. Seems this was a false alarm-as two counties reconsidered their counting techniques, recounted, and decided that the signatures qualified after all. A collective sigh of relief was purportedly heard emanating from the Capitol as current, otherwise termed-out legislators still stand to gain additional years if this measure passes.

This event may very well lead to additional ballot measures. The conventional wisdom goes that Schwarzenegger’s support is either necessary or very helpful to get the term-limits/extension measure passed, but he won’t play ball unless a redistricting measure is also included, which will take the ability to configure legislative districts out of the hands of the legislature. Without such a measure, there is concern that the Gov. might even oppose the desired term-limits/extension measure, thus likely condemning it to fail. Speaker Nunez is purported to be scurrying hard to put an initiative together that will meet the Gov’s requirements, while Senator Perata has made it clear it won’t get by the Senate if it also includes putting Congressional redistricting into the hands of an outside body. The key question is whether such a compromise is in the offing and whether it flies with the Gov. No answer on that one yet.

As we reported last week, Senator Perata’s advisory initiative is on the governor’s desk. Perata wants the people of California to be able to weigh in on the war in Iraq and let the President and Congress know whether we want an immediate withdrawal of our troops. The vote was predictably along party-lines and the odds are that the Gov. will veto it along the same party line. But the problem for the Governor “of the people”, as he likes to define himself, is that he can’t argue that the people shouldn’t have a chance to express their opinion on this measure, without being labeled a hypocrite. Don’t bet on seeing this reach the ballot, however. There’s very little upside for the Gov in signing the measure to send it to the ballot. He’s too good a politician not to realize this.


The Rest of the Story

Our blogging offerings for the week:

End of Session Drama Begins

Senate Bill 974- The Art of the Possible

To read and comment on these entries, just go to: www.speakoutca.org/weblog/

With only a few days left in the first year of this legislative session, there will be a mad-dash to end the year on an upbeat of legislative accomplishment. This is also the time when good intentions and bad bills can wreak havoc on our state so we’ll be watching bills carefully and sounding the alarm if we think there are concerns that you might want to express to the legislature or the Governor when these measures get to his desk.

We welcome your comments and suggestions and hope you will send this newsletter to your friends and other like-minded progressives. Urge them to sign up to Speak Out California and keep the progressive voice alive!

Until next week,

Hannah-Beth Jackson and the Speak Out California Team

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The End-of-session Drama begins

(An interesting back-room story. – promoted by Brian Leubitz)

This article written by:  Former Assembly Member, Hannah Beth Jackson of Speak Out California

This is the truly crazy-making time of the legislative year, when hundreds of bills line up on the floor like airplanes on a crowded runway. And productivity isn't measured by the quality of the bills being considered but rather by the number that are disposed of on the floor each day. With over 700 bills waiting for take-off or otherwise, it's a madhouse. Several bills have already been or will be delayed, postponed or canceled while most of those lined up will take off for the Governor's desk where their fate will be decided within thirty days of their final vote. An action alert is up, here. But read on for the details.

It is chaos, exhausting and usually a productive time. But this is also the time of year when egos and hard-feelings from past slights, disrespect or other machinations force otherwise important measures to languish and die, often even before hitting the runway.

Such is the fate of Senator Joe Simitian's bill, SB 412 which would required the Liquified Natural Gas supporters to demonstrate an actual need for the product before any LNG terminals could be built in California. This seems like a no-brainer in that these plants are enormously expensive to build and often present serious environmental concerns. It would only make sense that before California allow any to be constructed under those conditions that we prove they are actually necessary. With that in mind, the measure should have made it to the floor—but was held up in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, along with several other important measures that had been developed and passed not only through their “house of origin” (the Senate) but had made it beyond all the Assembly committees to find a hoped-for temporary resting place in the Assembly before being released for floor vote in that house. In SImitian's case, he had no such luck. Was it the nature of the bill and lots of opposition? Nope. Not in this case.

It was more a victim of the all-too-common tension between the “upper” and “lower” houses of the legislature. Considered by many to be the genius of our Founding Fathers and their creation of the bicameral system of government where bills must pass through two, separate legislative groups-the Senate and the Assembly (similar to Congress where the Senate and the House of Representatives often do battle), it often translates down into petty or ego-driven disputes. In this case, the holding of Simitian's bill is more a battle of power and ego where the upper and lower chambers are feeling slighted by each other. When that happens, good ideas and hard-fought bills are often the victims of political infighting. Such is the case with SB 412–and many other measures now neglected on the Appropriations Committee floors of each house.

The good news is that there is still time to resurrect SB 412 and that's just what we here at Speak Out California are hoping will happen. On Tuesday, September 4th, we sent out an action alert to our subscribers asking them to contact the Speaker of the Assembly, Fabian Nunez, and urge him to release this bill from the Appropriations Committee so that it can be heard. While often bills can wait until next year, there is a time constraint on this measure that requires its implementation this year. Why?

In essence this bill does two things: It requires the state to do a LNG Needs Assessment as part of its Integrated Energy Policy Report before approving placement of an LNG terminal in California. If we don't need it, why force it on our communities?

It also clarifies that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires strong alternatives technology analysis so that if an LNG terminal is approved for California, it will be the safest design with the fewest impacts.

With enormous cost and profit possiblities, there are several companies moving forward full-throttle to become California's LNG supplier. The longer we delay in requiring these standards, the less likely we will be able to justify imposing them after millions and millions of dollars have been spent developing plans, permits, etc. that the process requires. Unless we pass this legislation into law this year, it will be too late to impose these important criteria on the companies developing their proposals as we speak.

For more information on this important measure, and to send a request to the Speaker, check out our recent action alert:
http://ga4.org/campaign/ActNowforCaliforniasEnergy Future

Of course, there are many measures that suffered a similar fate and many more that are on the floor of both houses during this last, frenetic week of activity. With 700 bills to consider, there will be days with votes on 100 bills or more. Some move within seconds and the most difficult take up to hours, especially in the Assembly where often all 80 members feel compelled to speak. It is definitely the most interesting time of the legislative year and often the most chaotic. Remember it was at this point in 1996 when the ill-fated electricity de-regulation bill took off, only to crash and burn on the watch of a totally new and unsuspecting legislature years down the road. We  can only hope that this year the legislature will escape that fate. That answer, though, may not be known for some time.

For now, we can only keep our fingers crossed and take heed of the Hypocratic oath  to “do no harm”. As in each and every legislative session, we shall watch and see.

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Speaker Pelosi on Being the First Woman Speaker

By former Assemblymember, Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California


In celebration of the 78th anniversary of Women’s Equality Day, Speak Out California did a series of blogs commemorating the occasion. We conclude that series with a contribution from the first woman speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, who took the reigns of power in an historic celebration in January, 2007. (See our blog entry of January, 2007.)

Speaker Pelosi represents the first of what we hope is a long and celebrated ascension of women to the key leadership roles in our halls of power, justice and boardrooms. It has been, and continues to be an enormous struggle to break the barriers of sexism that have kept so many competent and qualified people from realizing the promises of our nation and our world.

In celebration of breaking down one of the most significant institutional barriers, we asked the Speaker to share with our readers her thoughts on her  momentous achievment in light of the accomplishments past and yet to come, as we reflect once more on Women’s Equality Day.

Please visit our website for her comments

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Beating back bad initiatives–one at a time

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Written by Former Assemblymember Hannah-Beth Jackson of Speak Out California

With three elections scheduled for 2008 in California, we’ve seen a tidal wave of initiative offerings announced and plunked into the expensive signature gathering process. Most of these measures come from cash-abundant corporations and their front groups trying to impose their will on the public. They include ideas designed to balloon corporate profits to the detriment of the environment, public health or individual rights (over-reaching eminent domain actions), advance the interests of the wealthy corporate accountability dodgers, repackage measures that have been tried and rejected in the past (such as anti-reproductive choice initiatives that incessantly appear), and programs that benefit special interest groups, but not the public. Many of them are funded by out-of-state groups or mega-millionaires who want to impose their personal philosophies on California, often as “test cases” for future efforts in the rest of the country. Or, in the case of the most recent initiative proposal by the Republican Party, to steal the next Presidential election by trying to divide up California’s electoral votes.

One such unwanted effort comes from the big-business front group called the Civil Justice Association of California or “CJAC“. Earlier this summer it announced it was proposing a ballot measure that would virtually eliminate class action lawsuits in California. The goal is to deny individuals harmed by the unlawful behavior of big corporations the right to come together to sue in order to end the behavior and be made whole from the wrongful conduct.

Obviously, big corporations, like Wal-Mart, want to be able to stiff their workers if they can get away with it, but under current law they can be brought into court and made to pay for the wages and benefits they promise their employees. (Wal-Mart is currently defending just such a case). Certainly not a radical notion, but in this pro-business, consumer and worker-be-damned atmosphere, it isn’t surprising that the corporate-controlled CJAC would try to thwart the little guy’s right to access the court system for protection and justice. What CJAC and its big bosses didn’t realize was that the surprise was going to be on them.

Shortly after announcing the introduction of this class-action killer initiative, leading consumer, labor and civil rights groups got together and initiated a series of hard-hitting responses to this brazen attempt to further weaken the rights of the people who suffer from corporate wrong-doing. Among those efforts was the filing of a series of counter-initiatives designed to hold corporate CEO’s and other fat-cats personally liable and accountable when they engage in misconduct of their own.

Groups that haven’t always walked the same path or shared the same vision soon came together, recognizing that progressive values require cooperation and coordination in fighting off the well-organized and well-financed corporate influences. Organizations representing seniors, the poor, the environment, consumers, workers and civil rights groups came together with the Consumer Attorneys of California to present an intimidating and forceful united front against the brunt of corporate greed and irresponsibility.

And when the good guys unite, they win. Yesterday corporate-backed CJAC announced that it was withdrawing its ill-conceived initiative. In response, Consumer Attorney President Ray Boucher acknowledged that this victory is just part of a much larger battle, saying:

  “We will continue to fight for the rights of Californians who need a voice in the civil
  justice system. We will continue to stand up to oil, tobacco, insurance,
  pharmaceutical and HMO-backed CJAC and we will fight to protect consumers
  and employees against corporate fraud, dangerous products, and the pilfering
  of worker and investor profit-sharing plans. We won’t let Corporate America
  take away any more of our legal rights and we won’t stand for its profit-over-people
  agenda.”

This is the call-to-action that the progressive movement needs to come together to battle a well-heeled political and financial machine that wants to take away the hard-fought gains of the past decades. Motivated by nothing other than profit, these well-organized corporate interests have been successfully working to erode our consumer, worker and environmental protections. It is time we, the people, worked together to counter their well-oiled attacks on our rights and defenses. The progressive community and its lead organizations must coordinate their efforts to make sure corporations are held accountable when they engage in misconduct or misdeed.

Progressives must focus on what unites us, not what divides us if we are going to be successful in a partnership to advance good corporate stewardship and social responsibility among our many and varied entrepreneurial interests. We must also work hard to protect the public interest but can only do so if we work together. We have seen yet another glimpse of what success can look like if we do.

Today it’s one bad initiative down –but several more to go. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Sincerely,

Hannah-Beth Jackson

California

Celebrating Women’s Equality through Workforce Justice

Written by: Hannah-Beth Jackson

Now that the budget impasse is over (we’ll have more to say on that subject in this coming week’s update,”While California Dreams” ),we are focusing on Women’s Equality Day. This Sunday, August 26th marks the 87th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote after a 75 year struggle. There are many ways to mark the occasion. In California, there are at least two such ways we can  ensure that victims of employment discrimination continue to have the opportunity to seek redress in the courts. For that to happen, our legislature should pass Assemblymember Julia Brownley’s AB 435 and Assemblymember Dave Jones’ AB 437  Both of these measures are pending in the California State Senate.

Brownley’s bill, AB 435, specifically extends the statute of limitiations within which women can file suits for gender-based wage discrimination. It requires that all employers maintain their records of wages, wage rates, job classifications and other terms and conditions of employment for five years, and extends the statute of limitations for a civil action to collect back wages to four years, or, in the case of willful misconduct, to five years. The current statute of limitations is two years, unless the violation is willful in which case it is three years.

The Jones bill, AB 437 is necessary because the current US Supreme Court has demonstrated a commitment to overturn, and thus destroy, many hard-fought gains for women, minorities and other “protected classes” of people in this country. One such effort occurred in May of 2007 when the Court voted, by a 5-4 majority, to overturn decades of precedent in the Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. In doing so, the Supreme Court severely limited workers’ ability to bring pay discrimination claims against employers who break the hard-fought laws prohibiting discriminatory compensation practices on the basis of gender, race or other prohibited criteria.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Lilly Ledbetter had waited too long to sue for pay discrimination despite the fact that she filed a complaint as soon as she received an anonymous note alerting her to the fact that her wages were less than her male counterparts.  The Court said that Ledbetter was required to file a complaint within 180 days of the pay decision, regardless of whether she had knowledge of the discrimination or not!(Note: emphasis and comment are those of this author)

In Ms. Ledbetter’s case, she had worked for Goodyear Tire for nearly twenty years. She sued the company after learning that she, the only female supervisor, was the lowest paid supervisor at the facility. She was paid 15-40% less than the male supervisors, even though she had more experience than several of her colleagues. After a jury trial, the 12 local citizens found that her employer had unlawfully discriminated against her on the basis of sex.

Regardless, the US Supreme Court ruled that she had filed the complaint too late. In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg (the sole woman on the Court today) called on Congress to correct the Court’s new-found re-interpretation of the discrimination law. Within a month, Congress introduced federal legislation to do just that.
AB 437 is modeled after the federal legislation.

Why is this legislation needed? For the simple reason that the Ledbetter decision ignores workplace realities. Most employees who are the victims of discrimination, don’t learn about the discrimination for years into their employment. Salary information is often kept confidential. And given the latest results here in California (which are consistently felt across the nation) showing that the wage gap between rich and poor is only increasing, it is important that discrimination in employment be tackled head-on.

Here in California we have set the example for decades on workforce equity. We have led the way to snuff out bias, hardship and mistreatment of workers by greedy and biased employers. Ironically, it is many of those same corporate fat-cats, who think nothing of multi-million dollar golden parachutes for their CEO’s, who are opposed to this legislation. They don’t want to be held to standards  that insure fairness and accountability against law-breaking policies of discrimination. Examples of those opposed to these measures include the California Building Industry Association (CBIA), the big financial companies through their California Bankers Association and the Car Dealers, through their association, the California Motor Car Dealers, among the usual and predictable others who just don’t like having to be accountable to the public or the people who make their businesses run.

Who are those in support? As one would think, the folks who are committed to equal justice and fairness. Included are organizations supporting Women’s Rights, Civil Rights and Labor. This is another battle pitting those protecting the working people vs. the corporate giants seeking millions in profit and little for the people who get them there.

Times are tough enough for working families. It’s time we made sure the hard-fought protections the people have been able to achieve remain effective. And like so many other important laws, the only way we can ensure accountability is to keep the courthouse doors open to those who have been treated unfairly or unlawfully. It’s time to make sure the hard-working people of California can rely on our system of justice to make sure we are treated fairly. We’ve earned it and our Constitution, no matter how battered or bruised it is these days, entitles us to it.

And in honor of Women’s Equality Day, let us not forget that the symbol of Justice in our country is fittingly a woman, blindfolded, holding the scales of justice in her hands. And to further reinforce that image, remember that our Pledge of Allegiance contains, as its final commitment, “Liberty and Justice for all”. Let us make that the legacy of this year’s Women’s Equality celebration.