The San Diego Union-Tribune

May 3, 1985 Friday

State measure on gay job bias is dead

BYLINE: Daniel C. Carson, Staff Writer

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A-3

LENGTH: 455 words

DATELINE: SACRAMENTO

SACRAMENTO -- State legislation to ban private job discrimination against homosexuals is dead for the 1985 session. Assemblyman Art Agnos, D-San Francisco, yesterday conceded defeat of AB 1, and did not even try to bring the bill to a vote before the Assembly Labor and Employment Committee. "I don't have the votes," Agnos said later. The measure had failed, 4-5, in a committee test vote on April 11. Agnos said it could not possibly pass unless Assemblyman Dick Floyd, D-Hawthorne, a past supporter of the bill, renewed his backing. But Floyd, chairman of the committee, had put himself in the "no" column in that earlier legislative hearing, telling a reporter later in explanation that it was "inconsiderate" when "one author takes up so much time on one issue." This is the ninth year that Agnos has carried this legislation. Yesterday, Agnos rejected speculation that his Assembly Democratic Caucus does not want to press the issue of gay rights because of negative political fallout for party members in conservative districts and because the governor would likely veto the bill anyway. Gov. Deukmejian's March 1984 veto of an identical bill came after the governor asserted there was not "compelling evidence...of widespread employment discrimination based upon sexual orientation." The Agnos measure would have extended to the private sector an existing prohibition against discrimination in state employment on the basis of sexual orientation. Agnos has described AB 1 as ratifying "fundamental human rights" of gay men and women to hold a job.

In setting aside AB 1 for now, Agnos took advantage of Assembly rules that give him a chance to renew his bid for the bill in the 1986 session of the Legislature. While Agnos had asserted at an earlier legislative hearing that no Assembly member was placed in political jeopardy during 1984 for voting for AB 1, there is evidence that the issue of gay rights remains volatile and controversial. For example, fundamentalist church groups have approached Republican U.S. Senate candidates with demands that they renounce any financial aid or endorsements from homosexuals.

The political waters were stirred further when one candidate, Sen. Ed Davis, R-Chatsworth, rejected that call but Rep. Bill Dannemeyer, R-Fullerton, vowed to accept no gay backing. In other legislative action, the Assembly committee shelved for this year two bills by Assemblyman Tom Hayden, D-Santa Barbara, to impose new health and safety standards on private businesses using video-display terminals, and to set such guidelines for purchases of VDTs by state government. The panel also defeated, by a 5-6 vote, a bill by Floyd to increase the state hourly minimum wage from the present level of $3.35 to $4.

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