Bills Could Reverse Court’s Anti-Discrimination Rulings

A drive is underway in the Legislature to reverse a pair of recent high-profile decisions by the state Supreme Court that upheld state anti-discrimination laws in housing and membership in private clubs.

In one case, the court found that a country club in San Mateo illegally denied a divorced woman membership. In the other, the court ruled against a Chico landlord who refused to rent to an unmarried couple because of her religious beliefs.

The bills now pending in the Legislature, in essence, would reverse the two court decisions. The measures have picked up momentum by winning committee approval and await action in the full Senate and Assembly, respectively. They require majority votes to win approval.

But civil rights advocates are preparing for big floor fights, arguing that the bills represent the first serious assaults on civil rights in California in at least two decades.

In the case of the divorced woman, Mary Ann Warfield, the court ruled in 1995 that the private, nonprofit Peninsula Country Club in San Mateo was a business establishment and therefore subject to the state law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender.

In the case of the landlord, the court ruled last month that when Evelyn Smith refused in 1987 to rent a duplex to an unmarried man and woman, she violated the state law against discrimination based on marital status. Smith said she feared that she would not join her husband in heaven if she rented to unmarried couples.

The two cases set the stage for confrontation in the Legislature; the battle may come to a head this week.

At the urging of private country clubs, state Sen. Ken Maddy (R-Fresno) introduced a bill (SB 2110) that would give clubs a special exemption. In the Assembly, Keith Olberg, a Republican from Victorville, is the author of a measure (AB 2611) that would allow landlords to legally refuse to rent to unmarried couples.

Olberg said the court ran roughshod over Smith’s constitutional right “to decide whom she will invite onto her property” and her right “not to be compelled by the state to act in a way that violates her conscience.”

Olberg said he intends to bring his bill to a vote in the Republican-controlled Assembly this week, where Democrats have promised a major fight.

Maddy has temporarily parked his proposal at the urging of Senate leader Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward). He said Lockyer wants more time to examine it.

California law has long allowed private clubs to set their own rules for membership. But the court said the Peninsula Country Club qualified for regulation under the Unruh Civil Rights Act because it engaged in regular transactions with the public, including renting facilities for wedding parties, fashion shows, golf and tennis tournaments and bar mitzvahs.

The Unruh Act outlaws discrimination based on gender, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin or disability “in all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.”

Warfield, a real estate employee, was awarded her family’s membership in the Peninsula Country Club as part of the divorce judgment. But the club in 1981 refused to admit her as a member because she is a woman.

She sued and won 14 years later, but the court decision sent shock waves through private golf and tennis clubs statewide. Maddy said they feared that they would be treated as businesses if, for example, their facilities were used for charity fund-raising events.

Maddy’s bill would exempt such clubs from California’s civil rights law if they qualify under federal law as charitable, recreational, fraternal, educational or other similar organizations for tax exemption purposes. He said most private country clubs in California qualify.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Organization for Women, Consumers Union and others charge that the bill would reverse civil rights gains achieved by women, minorities and the disabled.

Francisco Lobaco, the ACLU’s state legislative director, warned last week that the proposal would “return us to the days when private clubs could say, ‘No blacks, no women, no Jews allowed.’ ”

Maddy denied the assertion, but said his bill will be difficult to pass because some lawmakers, whose districts include private country clubs, fear that “if you vote for this, you can be called discriminatory.”

Maddy, a member of several country clubs, said most no longer discriminate against women. He said the bill is intended to define “to what extent [private clubs] can engage in some interplay with the public and still remain private.”

Maddy said the court did not set guidelines on how much business contact a private club could have with the public before it became a business establishment subject to anti-discrimination laws.

Under the bill, a private club would be presumed to be exempt from the Unruh Act if it qualified as a fraternal, recreational, educational or other tax-exempt organization under IRS rules. He said most private country clubs in California qualify.

“What I am trying to do is recognize that there are two rights involved here: the right not to be discriminated against and the right of certain groups to be private if they want to be private,” Maddy said.

In the Assembly, the Olberg bill would eliminate marital status as a protection against discrimination for renters and home buyers. Democratic leader Richard Katz of Sylmar says the measure would throw “open the door to widespread housing discrimination.”

But Olberg insisted that his legislation would give landlords greater freedom in choosing their tenants and “simply draw back the long arm of the state from an area where state involvement is unwarranted.”

He said that if his bill became law, unmarried renters might have a “slightly smaller pool of apartments to choose from.” Likewise, he said, landlords who chose to “obey their consciences” and not rent to unmarried couples might have fewer prospective tenants.

The Olberg bill is opposed by organizations representing senior citizens, single parents, gays, students and the disabled.

The Supreme Court still has before it for resolution a pair of court opinions that came to opposite conclusions on whether the Unruh anti-discrimination law applies to the Boy Scouts and whether their organizations are business establishments.

Maddy and the ACLU’s Lobaco said Maddy’s bill would not apply to the Boy Scouts even if the Supreme Court ruled that Scout councils were business establishments. They said the bill lists specific federal tax codes that do not apply to the Boy Scouts.