(CALMATTERS) – California’s controversial law requiring publicly traded companies headquartered in the Golden State to diversify their boards is unconstitutional, a Los Angeles County superior court judge ruled Friday. The brief ruling doesn’t explain the judge’s reasoning for striking down the measure, which requires some 700 companies to have at least one board member from an “underrepresented community” — including those who identify as LGBTQ, Black, Latino, Asian American, Pacific Islander or Native American — by the end of 2021, and more in subsequent years. The ruling marks a significant win for Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group also challenging California’s law mandating women on corporate boards.
- Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: “This historic California court decision declared unconstitutional one of the most blatant and significant attacks in the modern era on constitutional prohibitions against discrimination.”
- The Secretary of State’s office, which is empowered to charge noncompliant companies, didn’t respond to a request for a comment Sunday.
In other equity news: California’s poorest residents — who earn less than $30,000 annually and qualify for state tax credits — make up nearly 50% of the estimated 1 million people from whom the state intercepted 2021 tax refund money to pay off debts, such as parking tickets, college tuition, child support and court fees, the Los Angeles Times reports. Advocates say it defies logic for the state to give its poorest residents money in the form of tax credits, only to snatch it back by garnishing their tax refunds: It’s like trying to “plug a bleed on one end while another end is still an open wound,” said Courtney McKinney, a spokesperson for the Western Center on Law & Poverty.