Conservative watchdog sues California for law mandating diversity quotas in corporate boardrooms
10/14/2020 / By Arsenio Toledo
Conservative government watchdog Judicial Watch announced on Monday, Oct. 5, that it would be suing the state of California over a law, known as Assembly Bill 979, requiring publicly traded corporations headquartered in the state to fulfill diversity quotas by having several members of their corporate boards of directors to come from racial or sexual minorities. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom and is the first law of its kind anywhere in the United States.
“The legislation’s requirement that certain corporations appoint a specific number of directors based upon race, ethnicity, sexual preference and transgender status is immediately suspect and presumptively invalid and triggers strict scrutiny review by the court,” said the group in a statement.
According to the bill, the people who have to be given special consideration are those who come from “an underrepresented community,” which is defined as people who come from ethnic minority backgrounds, such as Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives. It also includes people who self-identify as a sexual minority, such as gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.
Newsom signed the bill into law on Wednesday, Sept. 30. (Related: Judge rules that Uber, Lyft must convert California drivers into employees; Uber says it must shut down all operations in California.)
Law illegal under state constitution, argues Judicial Watch
According to Judicial Watch, the new law will force California companies to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars just to gather the demographic information of their companies, compile a report with the new data, and make the necessary changes to their boards of directors.
While the cost itself is a problem, Judicial Watch is also arguing that this kind of spending is illegal under the state’s constitution, which states that any institutionalized discrimination based on race or ethnicity has to be “narrowly tailored” to serve the “compelling interest” of the state government.
Therefore, Judicial Watch argues, because the burden of cost is being paid for by corporations and the state government has not been able to prove how the discriminatory policies of AB 979 have been tailored to suit the government’s interests, it should be made illegal and the Superior Court of Los Angeles should publish a court order blocking taxpayer funds from being directed to help enforce the bill.
“California’s government has a penchant for quotas that are brazenly unconstitutional. Gender quotas and now new quotas for numerous other groups for corporate boards are slaps in the face to the core American value of equal protection under the law,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch.
“While California skirts bankruptcy and burns up due to fiscal abandon, its leftist political leadership would waste tax dollars to implement illegal and divisive quotas.”
As state Democrats like Gavin Newsom are busy turning their respective states into toxic environments where businesses cannot thrive, national Democrats like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi are working hard behind the scenes to cause a lot of chaos. Listen to this episode of the Health Ranger Report, a podcast by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, as he talks about how the Democratic Party plans to install Pelosi as president to effectively destroy the United States.
AB 979 proposed supposedly to fix problem of “racial justice”
AB 979 was co-authored by and filed in the California State Assembly by Assemblyman Chris Holden, a Democrat. In a statement, Holden said that the new law “represents a big step forward for racial equity.”
“While some corporations were already leading the way to combat implicit bias, all of California’s corporate boards will now better reflect the diversity of our state,” said Holden in a statement.
AB 979 was inspired by similar legislation passed in 2018 that added gender quotas for publicly-traded corporations headquartered in California. Conservative groups are also challenging this legislation.
The requirement to include a director from an underrepresented community goes into effect by the end of 2021, if the law is not stricken down by its legal challenges. By 2022, boards of directors that have between four to nine people must have at least two directors from an underrepresented community. Boards with nine or more people must have at least three.
California’s Secretary of State, currently Democrat Alex Padilla, has the power to enforce AB 979 and to fine corporations that fail to comply to its provisions. Companies will be fined $100,000 for the first violation and $300,000 for any subsequent violation.
The Secretary of State is also required to post annual reports detailing how many corporations in California are complying with the new requirements, and how many have moved their headquarters out of the state to avoid it.
Read more articles about how California’s policies are making the state less stable at CaliforniaCollapse.news.
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Tagged Under: board of directors, business, California, California State Assembly, corporations, discrimination, diversity quotas, ethnic minorities, Gavin Newsom, law, left cult, Left-wing, liberal lunatics, Libtards, lunatics, politics, racism, sexual minorities
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