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LESBIAN/GAY LAW NOTES California - On May 28, the California Assembly Appropriations Committee heard testimony on A.B. 205, a measure that would let domestic partners file joint state income tax returns, pay and receive child support, and seek insurance coverage for each other, among other things. The bill is yet another in a string of incremental measures intended by its proponents to gradually expand the rights of domestic partners under state law until they approach equality with married couples. At the hearing, the legislators heard from M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economics professor and president of the Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, and R. Bradley Sears, director of the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law at UCLA Law School, about a study they performed to consider the economic impact on California of extending more rights to domestic partners. They contended that the revenue lost from allowing joint tax filings would be more than compensated by money that state would save in a variety of programs as a result of according formal legal recognition to domestic partnerships. Perhaps the greatest impact would stem from being able to take a partner's income into account in determining eligibility for public benefits programs that are means-tested. Badgett and Sears found that the state would save about $12 million a year through the disqualification of benefits applicants whose partners' incomes would exceed the cut-offs for eligibility for various welfare benefits. They also noted the jump in tourist income in Vermont after enactment of Civil Unions there, and predicted a similar economic benefit to California. Oakland Tribune, May 28.
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