California Club Votes to Admit Women

The California Club, for 100 years one of Los Angeles’ elite private clubs, announced Tuesday that its membership has voted overwhelmingly to change its bylaws and admit women as regular members.

Women candidates will follow the same admissions procedure imposed on men. The procedure involves seven steps, requiring a proposer, a seconder and references from at least six regular members. But club President Lawrence P. Day and immediate past President Robert P. Miller Jr. reportedly have given their personal assurances that they are committed to admitting women members soon.

“There will be women,” said another past president of the club, who asked not to be identified. “There clearly will be. There are proposals to this effect moving now.”

Day, however, refused to comment beyond the terms of the sparely worded two-paragraph statement issued in the name of the board of directors.

The statement said that “of the club’s 1,275 regular members eligible to vote, a total of 1,045, or more than 81%, sent in their ballots. Of these, 952, or 90%, voted for the change in bylaws, 81 voted against, and 12 returned ballots abstaining.”

This was slightly greater than the 4-1 margin in the neighboring Jonathan Club’s vote in April to approve the admission of women as members.

The Jonathan Club’s general manager, Charles Walter, said Tuesday that the club now has “full-privileged women members.” He said he is not authorized to say how many had been admitted, however.

The California Club announcement came one day after a Los Angeles ordinance went into effect making it illegal for the city’s large private clubs to exclude people from membership on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability.

The chief sponsors of that ordinance differed Tuesday in their reaction to the California Club announcement.

“I’m really pleased and I’d like to think they were just looking for the opportunity to do it. I also think they’ll like it. Admitting women will make for a much more interesting group of people as a whole,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus, who had shepherded the ordinance to a unanimous vote in the Los Angeles City Council.

But City Controller Rick Tuttle, who helped draft the ordinance and garnered political support for it, said: “I’m not going to pat them on the back for doing something I think they should have done long ago. Now that it’s done, what’s important is the implementation. They must provide a fair opportunity for women and minorities to be admitted.”

The California Club admission fee is presently reported as $10,000. The bylaws of the club contain these steps for admission as part of the authorized maximum of 1,275 regular members:

A proposer writes to the Admissions Committee that he desires to propose a member.

The Admissions Committee provides the proposer with a preliminary questionnaire, which he fills out.

If the Admissions Committee, upon reviewing the questionnaire, thinks the candidate “might be favorably considered,” it gives the proposer a proposal form.

The proposal form is completed and signed by the proposer and a seconder. It names as references at least six regular members who “know personally the candidate and the members of his or her immediate family.”

After this is returned and considered by the Admissions Committee, the club secretary mails to all club members a notice of the candidacy and asks for any confidential comments any member may have. A similar notice is posted on the club bulletin board for seven days.

After the candidate is introduced personally to a majority of the Admissions Committee, he is voted on by secret written ballot and no candidate is approved for membership “except by the unanimous favorable vote of the members of the committee present at the meeting.”

If the vote is favorable, the president of the club extends an invitation to the candidate to become a member as soon as there is a vacancy under the limit of 1,275 regular members.

Another section of the California Club bylaws states, “The Board of Directors shall have the right to terminate the membership of any member at any time, with or without cause.”