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Study supports domestic partners

Wednesday, May 28, 2003
The Oakland Tribune
By Josh Richman, STAFF WRITER

Giving domestic partners most of the rights enjoyed by married couples could save California up to almost $11 million per year, a pair of researchers said Tuesday.

The Assembly Appropriations Committee today considers a bill to do just that. AB 205 -- backed by many Bay Area lawmakers -- would let domestic partners file joint state income tax returns, pay and receive child support and seek insurance coverage for each other, among other rights.

The committee is likely to send the bill to a floor vote -- among the committee's 25 members are nine of the bill's authors and co-authors -- but the researchers' study should help persuade others that "discrimination costs more than equality," said Geoffrey Kors, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Equality California.

Study author M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts economics professor and president of the independent Institute for Gay and Lesbian Strategic Studies, and co-author R. Bradley Sears, a UCLA law professor director of the Charles R. Williams Project on Sexual Orientation Law, acknowledged letting domestic partners file joint income tax returns could cost California almost $4 million per year.

But they say AB 205 could save around $12 million per year from the CalWORKS and Temporary Aid to Needy Families welfare programs, MediCal, SSI Disability, food stamps and Healthy Families child health insurance by letting the state consider the income of a potential recipient's domestic partner when deciding eligibility for benefits.

That's the case for Ron Alexander of Santa Barbara, who spoke on a media conference call Tuesday with Kors, Badgett and Sears.

Alexander gets state money to cover co-payments on his AIDS-related medications, but would not if AB 205 becomes law.

He said he and his partner of 15 years gladly would exchange the money for "stronger public recognition of our relationship."

Off welfare

Emily Brooke of Placerville said AB 205 would help her get off the welfare, MediCal, food stamps and other public aid upon which she has relied since her partner left in 1999.

She could seek child support from her ex-partner, who left her caring for twins, one of whom has Down syndrome and a congenital heart defect.

More tourism

Badgett said California also could reap up to $3 million per year from added tourism if AB 205 passes; eight of 10 people entering into civil unions in Vermont are out-of-state visitors.

The study found AB 205 wouldn't significantly affect the state's courts, employee benefits or administrative costs.

Among the bill's five authors is Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco.

Co-authors include Assembly members Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley; Joe Nation, D-San Rafael; Manny Diaz, D-San Jose; and Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, as well as state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton, D-San Francisco, and Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara.

Ban on gay marriages

Conservative groups call it an end-run around the gay and lesbian marriage ban imposed by Proposition 22 of 2000.

"California has a legitimate interest in not legalizing gay marriages or expanding domestic partner laws," the Committee on Moral Concerns wrote in its February newsletter.

"In all of human history, every major society and major religion has considered homosexuality and rejected it as unnatural, immoral and dangerous."