Judge Ends California’s Attempt to Force Corporate Boards to Have an Approved Number of Women as Members

A California court has struck down the California legislature’s attempt to force corporate boards to have a prescribed number of women as board members saying the law is unconstitutional.

Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the state’s Constitution.

Per Just the News:

The law was challenged by Judicial Watch, who argued that the law created an unconstitutional gender-based quota system. Judicial Watch represented three California taxpayers who brought forth the case. The judge issued the ruling on Friday.

“Thankfully, California courts have upheld the core American value of equal protection under the law,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement Monday.

The 2018 law at the center of the case, Senate Bill 826, required that publicly held foreign or domestic corporations with principal executive offices in California add at least one female director to its board by the end of 2019. By January 2022, the law required corporations to have at least three female directors on boards of six or more members and at least two female directors on boards of five members.

Corporations that failed to file board member information to the Secretary of State regarding these regulations would face a fine of $100,000 for the first violation and $300,000 for subsequent violations and for failing to have the required number of female board members.

California’s measure was spurred by several European countries that passed similar requirements.

But, hopefully, this will be the first domino to fall in this idiotic, anti-American law. And if we are lucky, similar rules in Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and the state of Washington will also be scotched as unconstitutional.

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