GOP Objects to Pending Benefits Rule Change

Over strong objections from Republican legislators, the Legislature is poised to offer health care benefits to the domestic partners of unmarried legislative employees.

Under a rule change approved last week by the Joint Rules Committee, legislative workers will soon be able to take advantage of the new benefit.

As many as 200 of the Legislature’s 2,000 employees are expected to sign up for coverage for their partners at an overall cost of up to $140,000 a year.

“It’s a way of keeping us competitive with the private sector, which is increasingly offering this benefit,” said Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks).

Two years ago, the University of California Board of Regents extended health benefits to the partners of gay and lesbian employees.

And in January, Gov. Gray Davis, reversing policies of his GOP predecessor, said he would back a bill extending health benefits to partners of unmarried state employees.

Under the rule change for the legislative employees, domestic partners would be strictly defined as being at least 18 and “in a close and exclusive relationship in which each is responsible for their common welfare.”

Hertzberg, chairman of the Assembly Rules Committee, was among 13 Assembly and Senate Democrats to back the change. Six Republicans opposed it.

In a letter to Hertzberg and Senate leader John Burton (D-San Francisco), four GOP legislators criticized the change, saying it “would further the goals of those who want the state government to officially recognize the relationships of heterosexual couples that live together and homosexual couples.”

The Republicans also maintained that the policy revisions would “force taxpayers who have moral objections against heterosexual couples living together without the benefit of marriage and homosexual couples to help pay for the employer contribution for domestic partner benefits.”

The letter was signed by Assembly GOP Leader Scott Baugh of Huntington Beach and Republican Assembly members Brett Granlund of Yucaipa, Bill Leonard of San Bernardino and Patricia Bates of Laguna Niguel.

In a related matter, a bill by Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), AB 107, would allow cities enrolled in the huge Public Employees Retirement System to offer domestic partner benefits. It is scheduled to be heard Wednesday by the Appropriations Committee.