SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) \u2014 California lawmakers on Tuesday voted to outlaw discrimination based on caste, adding protections for people of South Asian descent who say they have been left out of traditional American safeguards for fairness in employment and housing.
The bill\u00a0\u2014 the first of its kind in the U.S. \u2014 now heads to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who must decide whether to sign it into law. Newsom\u2019s office said in an email that \u201cthe Governor will evaluate the bill in its merits when it reaches his desk.\u201d
Caste\u00a0is an ancient, complex system that regulates people\u2019s social status based on their birth. It\u2019s primarily associated with India and Hinduism, but caste-based divisions are also found in other faiths and countries.
State and federal laws already ban discrimination based on sex, race and religion. California\u2019s civil rights law goes further by outlawing discrimination based on things like medical conditions, genetic information, sexual orientation, immigration status and ancestry.
Tuesday, the state Senate voted 31-5 to approve a bill that would redefine \u201cancestry\u201d to include \u201clineal descent, heritage, parentage, caste, or any inherited social status.\u201d The bill was authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan-American woman elected to the state Legislature.
\u201cThe more our communities become more and more diverse, we need to go further and deeper to protect more people \u2014 even when certain issues are more invisible to the mainstream public,\u201d Wahab said.
India has banned caste discrimination since 1948, the year after it won independence from Great Britain. In recent years, South Asians have been pushing for caste protections on the U.S. Many major U.S. colleges and universities have added caste to their non-discrimination policies, including the University of California and California State University systems. In February,\u00a0Seattle\u00a0became the first U.S. city to ban discrimination based on caste.
Now, California could become the first state to do so. The bill easily passed the Legislature, with only a few dissenting votes. But the proposal provoked an intense response from the state\u2019s South Asian community. A\u00a0public hearing\u00a0on the bill this summer lasted hours as hundreds of people lined up around the Capitol to testify for and against the bill.
Opponents argued the bill is unfair because it only applies to people in a caste-based system. A letter to state lawmakers from the Hindu American Foundation earlier this year worried that South Asians could be \u201cforced to answer intrusive questions about or be judged for who they are married to.\u201d
Five Republicans voted against the bill on Tuesday, saying the bill would prompt the government and others to inappropriately judge people of South Asian descent. State Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, noted caste was a complex system with no universally agreed definition.
\u201cThis is not a bill that protects, but it\u2019s a bill that profiles,\u201d Grove said.
The vote was one of the first major bills to pass the Legislature during the hectic final two weeks of the legislative session. Lawmakers have until Sept. 14 to act on nearly 1,000 bills that have had a number of public hearings and amendments since they were first introduced. When lawmakers finish, Newsom will have a month to decide whether to sign those bills into law.
In the state Assembly, lawmakers passed a bill aimed at overhauling the process for voters to overturn laws passed by the Legislature.
California voters can veto laws passed by the Legislature. If enough people sign a petition, it triggers a referendum where voters are asked whether they want to keep a certain law or block it.
Last year, the Legislature passed a law to ban new gas and oil wells within 3,200 feet (975 meters) of schools, homes and hospitals. The oil industry gathered enough signatures to challenge that law. The law was\u00a0put on hold\u00a0for voters to decide, and proponents of the law\u00a0launched a separate campaign\u00a0to ask voters to keep it.
Some critics accused the oil industry\u00a0of using deceptive tactics to convince voters to sign the petition.
The bill lawmakers passed would require the top funders pushing a ballot referendum to overturn a law be listed on state voter information guides. It would also require statewide referendum measures to ask voters whether they want to \u201ckeep the law\u201d or \u201coverturn the law,\u201d as opposed to asking them to select \u201cyes\u201d to keep the law or \u201dno\u201d to overturn it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n