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SACRAMENTO by Rona Marech, Chronicle
Staff Writer The California Assembly may still vote this year on a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, but the future of the legislation remains uncertain after the Appropriations Committee placed it on hold pending further fiscal review. The deadline for bills to come off the committee's "suspense" file is May 21. Before then, committee chair Judy Chu, D-Monterey Park (Los Angeles County), agreed to look at a study presented at the hearing Wednesday morning, which found that allowing same-sex couples to marry would inject more than $20 million annually into the state economy. Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, who introduced the legislation, said while he would continue to push for passage of the bill, he didn't want to take it to the floor until he was confident of success. He does not yet have the 41 votes needed. "To move forward this year without real certainty that we have the vote will not be in our collective interests," he said. "Should we not prevail this year, we have an enormously good chance of getting it to the governor's desk next year." Benjamin Lopez, a lobbyist for Traditional Values Coalition, said foes of same-sex marriage weren't taking any chances, despite forecasts that the bill won't get very far this year. "We are marching on, ready for a complete showdown," said Lopez, who missed the hearing in order to prepare a mass mail campaign against the bill. "We're stopping at nothing to kill it." AB1967 would prohibit the denial of marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples in California. The bill would expand on the state's domestic partner bill -- which takes effect in 2005 -- by allowing gay couples to file joint tax returns, claim an exemption from property reassessment upon the death of a partner and travel across state lines without jeopardizing their marriage rights. The Appropriations Committee, which considers the cost of enacting bills, determined in its own analysis that because married couples typically get income tax breaks, AB1967 would drain money from the state. But researcher Brad Sears, director of a UCLA School of Law think tank, testified that allowing gay couples to wed would bring $22.3 to $25.2 million annually to the state because fewer individuals would be eligible for state benefit programs, such as Medi-Cal and CalWORKS. That, combined with increases in sales tax revenues from tourism and funds from same-sex wedding ceremonies, would offset the decrease in income tax revenues, he said. But Lopez and others dismissed the study. "It's a matter of who you're going to believe," he said. "Are you going to believe a professor on a liberal campus who wants this garbage crammed down the throats of Californians?" At the same hearing, the Insurance Equality Act, which would require insurers to treat registered domestic partners equal to spouses when offering or writing coverage, passed the Appropriations Committee in a 16-5 vote. ©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Page B - 3
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