California lawmakers on Tuesday voted to outlaw discrimination primarily based on caste, including protections for individuals of South Asian descent who say they’ve been disregarded of conventional American safeguards for equity in employment and housing.
The invoice — the primary of its sort within the U.S. — now heads to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, who should resolve whether or not to signal it into regulation.
Caste is an historical, complicated system that regulates individuals’s social standing primarily based on their delivery. It is primarily related to India and Hinduism, however caste-based divisions are additionally present in different faiths and nations.
State and federal legal guidelines already ban discrimination primarily based on intercourse, race and faith. California’s civil rights regulation goes additional by outlawing discrimination primarily based on issues like medical situations, genetic data, sexual orientation, immigration standing and ancestry.
Tuesday, the state Senate voted 31-5 to approve a invoice that might redefine “ancestry” to incorporate “lineal descent, heritage, parentage, caste, or any inherited social standing.” The invoice was authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab, the primary Muslim and Afghan-American girl elected to the state Legislature.
“The extra our communities change into increasingly various, we have to go additional and deeper to guard extra individuals — even when sure points are extra invisible to the mainstream public,” Wahab stated.
India has banned caste discrimination since 1948, the 12 months after it received independence from Nice Britain. Lately, South Asians have been pushing for caste protections on the U.S. Many main U.S. faculties and universities have added caste to their non-discrimination insurance policies, together with the College of California and California State College techniques. In February, Seattle grew to become the primary U.S. metropolis to ban discrimination primarily based on caste.
Now, California may change into the primary state to take action. The invoice simply handed the Legislature, with only some dissenting votes. However the proposal provoked an intense response from the state’s South Asian group. A public listening to on the invoice this summer season lasted hours as a whole lot of individuals lined up across the Capitol to testify for and in opposition to the invoice.
Opponents argued the invoice is unfair as a result of it solely applies to individuals in a caste-based system. A letter to state lawmakers from the Hindu American Basis earlier this 12 months anxious that South Asians could possibly be “pressured to reply intrusive questions on or be judged for who they’re married to.”
5 Republicans voted in opposition to the invoice on Tuesday, saying the invoice would immediate the federal government and others to inappropriately choose individuals of South Asian descent. State Sen. Shannon Grove, a Republican from Bakersfield, famous caste was a fancy system with no universally agreed definition.
“This isn’t a invoice that protects, nevertheless it’s a invoice that profiles,” Grove stated.
The vote was one of many first main payments to move the Legislature through the hectic last two weeks of the legislative session. Lawmakers have till Sept. 14 to behave on practically 1,000 payments which have had quite a few public hearings and amendments since they had been first launched. When lawmakers end, Newsom could have a month to resolve whether or not to signal these payments into regulation.
Within the state Meeting, lawmakers handed a invoice aimed toward overhauling the method for voters to overturn legal guidelines handed by the Legislature.
California voters can veto legal guidelines handed by the Legislature. If sufficient individuals signal a petition, it triggers a referendum the place voters are requested whether or not they need to maintain a sure regulation or block it.
Final 12 months, the Legislature handed a regulation to ban new fuel and oil wells inside 3,200 toes (975 meters) of colleges, properties and hospitals. The oil trade gathered sufficient signatures to problem that regulation. The regulation was placed on maintain for voters to resolve, and proponents of the regulation launched a separate marketing campaign to ask voters to maintain it.
Some critics accused the oil trade of utilizing misleading techniques to persuade voters to signal the petition.
The invoice lawmakers handed would require the highest funders pushing a poll referendum to overturn a regulation be listed on state voter data guides. It could additionally require statewide referendum measures to ask voters whether or not they need to “maintain the regulation” or “overturn the regulation,” versus asking them to pick “sure” to maintain the regulation or ”no” to overturn it.
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Related Press reporter Sophie Austin contributed.