Domestic partnership in California

The legislature has since expanded the scope of California domestic partnerships to include all of the rights and responsibilities common to marriage.

California has expanded the scope or modified some of the processes in domestic partnerships in every legislative session since the legislature first created the registry.

There is no longer a common residence requirement for couples wishing to establish a standard (non-confidential) domestic partnership.

The couple must also meet many other requirements that the dissolution be both simple and uncontested: no children (or current pregnancy) within the relationship, no real estate (including certain leases), and little joint property or debt.

The parties must also review materials prepared by the Secretary of State, execute an agreement dividing assets and liability, and waive claims to domestic partner support.

Working with the Task Force was Tom Brougham, a Berkeley city employee who coined the term "domestic partner" and created the concept.

[20] Despite successes in a handful of localities, supporters of legal recognition same-sex couples could not overcome the limited geographical scope and relatively modest range of programs administered at the county and city level.

[26] While modest in scope, Assembly Bill 26 marked the first time a state legislature created a domestic partnership statute without the intervention of the courts.

This bill, introduced by Assemblymembers Jackie Goldberg, Christine Kehoe, Paul Koretz, John Laird, and Mark Leno, created the presumption that domestic partners were to have all of the rights and responsibilities afforded spouses under state law.

The bill did carve out certain exceptions to this premise, principally involving the creation and dissolution of domestic partnerships and certain tax issues.

This subsequent legislation includes: As of January 1, 2020, Senate Bill 30 of 2019 (Wiener) removes the requirement that persons be of the same sex or of the opposite sex and over 62 years of age in order to enter into a domestic partnership, allowing all opposite-sex couples to enter domestic partnerships as an alternative to marriage.

In modern life, people make all sorts of relationship choices reflecting their values, commitments, and long-term plans.

SB 30 removes discriminatory barriers for couples who wish to become domestic partners and recognizes and respects their relationship choices.

In early 1997, two and half years before any statewide recognition occurred, polls showed two-thirds of Californians supported the limited provisions in unsuccessful bills debated in the legislature at the time.

There was also strong support (59 percent) for broader provisions (pension, health, leave and survivor benefits) that weren't enacted until more than four years later.

The 2012 poll found for the first time a majority support for same-sex marriage when non-marriage domestic partnerships were presented as an option.

Following the passage of The California Domestic Partner Rights and Responsibilities Act of 2003, state senator William "Pete" Knight (author of the successful Proposition 22 initiative) and Assemblymember Ray Haynes sought to put the new legislation to a popular vote.

Randy Thomasson (an opponent of gay rights and head of the Campaign for California Families) filed a similar lawsuit, which challenged both A.B.

In the wake of those decisions, opponents of legal recognition for LGBT families launched at least two recall efforts against Judge Loren McMaster, who presided over the trial-court hearings.

[51] Along similar legal lines, defendants in a wrongful-death action brought by the survivor of a domestic partnership mounted a defense based partly on the ground that the legislative enactments giving a domestic partner standing to sue for wrongful death ran afoul of Proposition 22 (among other defenses).

In pursuing these claims, the plaintiffs argue that even the broad protections of California's domestic partnership scheme constitute a "separate but unequal" discriminatory framework.

Regardless, four separate groups began petition drives to amend the California Constitution to prevent same-sex marriage and repeal domestic-partnership rights.

[58] In late 2008, Proposition 8 was passed by the voters, in 2009, the legality of Proposition 8 was upheld by the California Supreme Court in Strauss v. Horton holding that same-sex couples have all the rights of heterosexual couples, except the right to the "designation" of marriage and that such a holding does not violate California's privacy, equal protection, or due process laws; the In re Marriage Cases still apply.

[61] In December 2010, the Internal Revenue Service issued a revised edition of its Publication 555, Community Property, explicitly applying this ruling to registered domestic partners in Nevada as well, the other community property states with such registries, as well as, in California,[62] both registered domestic partners and same-sex couples recognized by the state as married.