(Jim Luksic, Headline USA) In 2018, California Democrat Gov. Jerry Brown signed into state law that publicly traded companies must include at least one woman in their boardrooms. That’s no longer the case, as Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis ruled on May 13 against the legislation known as Senate Bill 826.
The law’s intent was “to achieve general equity or parity,” the judge wrote, “its goal was not to boost California’s economy, not to improve opportunities to women in the workplace nor not to protect California taxpayers, public employees, pensions and retirees.”
Additionally, Duffy-Lewis’ verdict asserted that the legislation, which had required compliance by the end of 2019, hadn’t proven the state’s corporations were deliberately discriminating against females. In February of this year, the judge heard arguments as part of a non-jury trial involving the bill.
Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch president, expressed his approval of the Superior Court’s latest ruling.
“The court eviscerated California’s unconstitutional gender quota mandate,” he said, according to Townhall.
“The radical Left’s unprecedented attacks on anti-discrimination law has suffered another stinging defeat.”
A taxpayers’ lawsuit was filed in August 2019 by Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog organization. During that trial’s closing arguments, attorney Robert Patrick Sticht admonished S.B. 826 co-author Hannah Beth-Jackson (then a state Senator) for failing to explain whether the legislation had any gender-neutral options.
Four years ago, then-Gov. Brown – as if exuding self-awareness and open-mindedness – pointed out that “numerous objects to this bill and serious legal concerns” had come about, and he wouldn’t dismiss its “potential flaws.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law a similar dubious decree in October 2020 requiring California-based corporations’ boardrooms to hire at least one minority member and/or a female. He targeted the firms’ pocketbooks, having sought a $100,000 fine for first-time offenders and then $300,000 fees for subsequent noncompliance.
