California NOW

Governor Brown Attempts to Change Penal Code for Domestic Violence

 The California Chapter of the National Organization for Women (California NOW) announced today that they will be waging a very public campaign to call on Governor Brown to remove the provision in the budget bill that eliminates domestic violence enforcement mandates from police officers and departments.

Current law requires mandatory response to domestic abuse calls, mandatory recording of those calls to emergency personnel, mandatory maintenance records of protection orders and mandatory incident reports. Governor Brown obviously believes domestic violence isn’t important enough to warrant mandates to ensure enforcement of those laws. That’s why, in the middle of night, he changed all of those acts from mandatory to optional, by changing the word in the penal code from “shall” to “may.”

California NOW President, Patricia Bellasalma stated, “California NOW has been fighting the governor’s office for more than two years and it’s getting old. We’ve been told repeatedly that he doesn’t like waiting, that democratic processes which are open and transparent are a waste of time and that he admires the autocratic Chinese government because they “get shit done.” Well what the Governor seems incapable of understanding is when there is no process, “shit” is exactly what gets done.”

Bellasalma continued, “This isn’t the first time we’ve had issues with the governor trying to change laws impacting women in this state through the use of rushed legislation. During the last budget cycle, a trailer bill sought to eliminate sex/gender from outcome measures tied to health inequities. That’s right - he didn’t care about unequal health outcomes for women, but we fought back and won.”

This latest attempt to destroy police mandates demonstrates a fundamental lack of a moral compass that no amount of philosophical reading can cure.  California NOW has been calling for transparency and accountability in state government for exactly this reason.  Governor Brown cannot be trusted to protect women’s health and safety.  The Legislature and Governor Brown must do more than just restore the Domestic Violence statutes; they must prove they deserve women’s trust by - at a minimum - enacting a three day delay before a vote statute that includes the budget.”

As Sacramento County District Attorney, Jan Scully, made clear in her statement yesterday regarding this issue, “These amendments undermining domestic violence laws and victims’ rights have been buried in this collection of mismatched laws because these changes would not survive if exposed to the light of public debate.”

California NOW will be calling on women across the state to contact Governor Brown’s office to demand that he veto AB 76 so that he isn’t responsible for taking California back more than two decades in the fight to break the cycle of domestic violence.

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International Women's Day!

Today is International Women's Day.  In commemoration, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet spoke today at the United Nations.

Here is a portion of what she said....

"We cannot move backwards, we must keep moving forward. It is what we owe to millions of women fighting for their rights around the world.

We find ourselves at a tipping point in history. Never before have we witnessed such global momentum and mobilization by men and women, girls and boys, demanding an end to violence against women and girls.

Never before have we witnessed such open, widespread public outrage and calls for change and action.

Never before have we had the instant and global outreach that new technologies afford—to record in mere seconds, and communicate in real time, the atrocities and horrors of violence committed against women and girls.

Violence against women is pervasive and knows no borders. It does not discriminate according to nationality, ethnicity, social class, culture or religion.

This is why women, men and young people have raised their voices in every region to say one thing: enough is enough.

People demand an immediate end to impunity. They insist on the protection of the rights of women and girls to live in dignity, free of violence and discrimination.

And let me say this: There can be no peace, no progress, no equality without women’s full and equal rights and participation. And there can be no gender equality without women’s realization. Women’s realization of their full reproductive rights, their right to sexual and reproductive health, are essential to the empowerment of women and to gender equality.

As social transformations in attitudes, beliefs, and values are happening, we must keep pace with the aspirations of people everywhere in the world. Their hope, our hope is to see gender equality become reality in this, our 21st century."

Click here to read Michelle Bachelet's full remarks.

 

 

Roe v Wade Turns 40 Today!

On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court overturned a Texas interpretation of abortion law, making abortion legal in the United States. The Roe v. Wade decision held that a woman, with her doctor, could choose abortion in earlier months of pregnancy without legal restriction, and with restrictions in later months, based on the right to privacy.

During the case, forty-two briefs were filed on behalf of "Roe." One of those came from the California chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Let's face it, access to a safe and legal abortion has always been about women’s full participation in our society. It’s about women being able to decide when and if to begin and/or expand their families, which is why it is constantly under attack. Last year, 19 states enacted 43 new measures to limit abortion access. That came on the heels of 24 states enacting similar measures in 2011.

The sad reality is that with each new restriction, the impact is being seen disproportionately on women who are not white and middle-upper class. Instead, those most impacted by anti-abortion legislation are lower-income women. Six in ten women who have abortions already have one child, and according to the Guttmacher Institute, most chose abortion so that they can take care of the children they already have. When laws are passed that impose unnecessary regulations which close clinics, force women to check with more than one doctor prior to an abortion, or make women wait a full 24 hours after seeing a doctor to have one, poor women are the ones affected. Women who can’t afford to take more than a few hours off work, or can’t afford childcare, or do not have a car to travel (sometimes to another state) are the ones negatively impacted by these new restrictions.

While we’re lucky here in California that our state assembly and senate is pro-choice, we unfortunately have some of the most extreme anti-choice voices in Congress and local officials who have been quietly trying to shut down clinics in their communities. We also have Crisis Pregnancy Centers popping up in most of our major cities and Birth Choice mobile units are on our college campuses. And as progressive as our state is, less than half of our 58 counties have a single abortion provider.

So, as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the landmark Roe v Wade decision, California NOW will continue – as we have done for more than 40 years – to be on the front lines fighting for women’s equality and empowerment, including the right to a safe and legal abortion.

For Equality & In Solidarity,

Patty Bellasalma
President, California NOW

Equity in Athletics Data Analysis

The Equity in Athletics Data Analysis is provided by the Office of Postsecondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education.

This analysis cutting tool was designed to provide rapid customized reports for public inquiries relating to equity in athletics data. The data are drawn from the OPE Equity in Athletics Disclosure Website database.

This database consists of athletics data that are submitted annually as required by the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA), via a Web-based data collection, by all co-educational postsecondary institutions that receive Title IV funding (i.e., those that participate in federal student aid programs) and that have an intercollegiate athletics program.

To access data for an institution, click here.

To access data for a group of institutions, click here.

 

Is Title IX Safe?

You may wonder what Title IX has to do with the Affordable Care Act. The answer is in the Constitution. 

Congress can only pass legislation pursuant to one of its constitutionally enumerated powers, and for both Title IX and one provision in the Affordable Care Act, Congress relied on the same provision -- the Spending Clause.  This provision of the Constitution gives Congress broad power to spend money.

In the case of Title IX, recipients of federal education funding agree not to discriminate on the basis of sex.  In the case of the Affordable Care Act, one of its provisions asked states who agree to take federal funding for Medicaid to expand its coverage to include individuals with a higher income level than the current eligibility level.  While the Supreme Court upheld most of the Affordable Care Act under a different constitutional provision, the Court struck down the Medicare expansion as a violation of the Spending Clause.   Given that Title IX is also Spending Clause legislation, the question became, "Does the Supreme Court decision about the Affodable Care Act jeopardize Title IX?"

In a recently published issue brief, the American Constitution Society and author Emily Martin explain that, notwithstanding the Court's new Spending Clause jurisprudence, Title IX remains safe from attack.

Click here to read Martin's brief.