BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2275
Page 1
GOVERNOR'S VETO
AB 2275 (Dymally)
As Amended August 23, 2004
2/3 vote
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|ASSEMBLY: |51-28|(May 25, 2004) |SENATE: |24-14|(August 25, |
| | | | | |2004) |
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|ASSEMBLY: |49-30|(August 26, | | | |
| | |2004) | | | |
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Original Committee Reference: P.E.,R. & S.S.
SUMMARY : Repeals requirements to annually establish employment
goals and timetables based on race or gender that were
invalidated by the California Court of Appeal in Connerly v.
State Personnel Board , and re-title Chapter 12 of Part 2,
Division 5, Title 2 of the Government Code from "Affirmative
Action Program" to "State Equal Employment Opportunity Program."
The Senate amendments delete provisions which require the State
Personnel Board (SPB) to track and maintain information
regarding the amount of staff resources and the costs expended
on discrimination complaint and litigation activity.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Requires each state agency and department to establish an
effective affirmative action program with specified
components, and to establish goals and timetables designed to
overcome any identified underutilization of minorities and
women in their respective organizations.
2)Requires SPB conduct specified activities in this regard.
Portions of these provisions have been held to be in violation
AB 2275
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of the California Constitution and the United States
Constitution.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill:
1)Repealed Chapter 12 (commencing with Section 19790) of Part 2
of Division 5 of Title 2 of the Government Code.
2)Required each state agency to establish an equal opportunity
program to provide equal employment opportunity to all state
job applicants and employees, based on merit, to contain
specified components.
3)Required SPB to conduct specified activities in this regard.
FISCAL EFFECT : Minor fiscal impact for provisions of current
law. Unknown costs to departments for developing a system to
track their resources and costs associated with discrimination
complaints and lawsuit, that should be absorbable by state
departments as a one-time cost. SPB will provide technical
guidance in developing tracking systems.
COMMENTS : According to SPB, "The purpose of this bill is to
update and strengthen current equal employment opportunity (EEO)
and non-discrimination requirements in the state civil service,
and to reduce growing state costs associated with discrimination
complaints and lawsuits.
"The SPB supports this bill because it will strengthen
California's merit civil service system by better ensuring equal
employment opportunity and non-discrimination, and it will help
reduce the annual multi-million dollar cost to the state for
resolving employment discrimination complaints and lawsuits.
"In 2001, the California Court of Appeal ruled that provisions
in the state's affirmative action/equal employment opportunity
statutes requiring the establishment of annual employment goals
and timetables based on race and gender violated the California
Constitution, as amended by Proposition 209, and invalidated
them. This bill would repeal the invalidated statutory
sections.
AB 2275
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"With the passage of Proposition 209 in 1996, there has been a
good deal of confusion about EEO requirements in the state civil
service. Many state managers have the mistaken attitude that
they no longer have to be concerned with EEO matters. This has
resulted in a decline in efforts to fully meet equal employment
opportunity requirements. There have been many examples of
this, including the following:
Governor Davis failed to issue the traditional Executive Order
reaffirming the state's commitment to EEO during his
administration. Governor Schwarzenegger signed a new Executive
Order reaffirming the state's commitment to EEO;
The lack of fully developed EEO plans in some departments,
including some that did not provide their employees with
written procedures for filing complaints;
Departments failing to submit the results of their annual
workforce analysis and action plan to the SPB for approval by
the July 1st statutory deadline;
Departments not complying with the statutory requirement that
the EEO Office report directly to the department director;
Some departments using untrained EEO investigators;
EEO investigations taking far too long to meet the legal
requirement of completing investigations in a timely manner;
Some incomplete EEO investigative reports;
EEO Office staff being reduced;
A lack of EEO training for departmental managers and
supervisors;
A lack of concern over the cost of dealing with discrimination
issues, etc.; and,
An increase in the number of discrimination complaints from
state employees. Formal discrimination complaints filed by
state employees with their department have increased from 387,
reported by departments in 1995 prior to Proposition 209, to a
high of 691, in 2001 after passage of Proposition 209. This
is a 78.6% increase in workload and associated costs.
"This bill would clarify current EEO requirements and clearly
express the state's equal employment opportunity and
non-discrimination policy in statute, thereby reinforcing the
importance of this policy.
"Discrimination complaints and lawsuits are a significant cost
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to state departments, yet no one is currently monitoring these
costs. No one knows the full cost of dealing with employment
discrimination complaints and lawsuits in the state civil
service. Partial cost information totaling $36.9 million was
collected by the SPB in 2002 from 38 out of 89 departments
surveyed. Many departments either refuse or are extremely
reluctant to provide cost information when asked by the SPB. It
is important to have accurate cost information to evaluate the
effectiveness of state EEO policies and efforts in order to hold
state departments accountable. Any costs resulting
from a lack of effort to prevent or correct employment
discrimination are a waste of the taxpayer
dollar. This cost information needs to be public information to
assure appropriate scrutiny of departmental practices and
accountability. This bill would require state departments to
provide cost information associated with discrimination
complaints and lawsuits to the SPB, which information in turn
would be incorporated into the SPB's Annual Report to the
Legislature on Discrimination Complaint Activity in the State
Civil Service."
GOVERNOR'S VETO MESSAGE :
My Administration is firmly committed to ensuring
equal employment opportunities for anyone interested
in public service with the State of California and
that is why my Administration issued Executive Order
S-6-04 in March of this year which clearly sets forth
the States employment opportunity policies.
In a recent court decision, Connerly v. State
Personnel Board , the Third District Court of Appeals,
invalidated specified sections of the State Civil
Service Affirmative Action Program as
unconstitutional. However, the sections that provide
for data collection and reporting were not found
unconstitutional and were not invalidated.
Accordingly, under both state and federal law, state
agencies have a responsibility to maintain statistical
information on the composition of their workforce, and
s ate agencies are required by federal law to identify
racial, gender and ethnic under-representation in
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their workforce. I fully expect that all state
agencies will comply with this responsibility and
maintain meaningful information on the composition of
the state workforce.
I would consider legislation that repeals those
provisions of law that have been judicially
invalidated. I encourage the State and Consumer
Services Agency to work with the proponents of this
legislation to craft a measure that will eliminate the
invalid statutory provisions, but does not impose
additional reporting and recordkeeping requirements.
Analysis Prepared by : Clem Meredith / P.E., R. & S.S. / (916)
319-3957
FN: 0009315