On May 13, 2022, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge struck down California's Women on Boards law, finding that the law violated the California Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis reached her decision following a bench trial in a challenge to the 2018 law.
In 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 826 into law. Referred to as the Women on Boards law, this first-in-the-nation law required all publicly held corporations whose principal executive offices are located in California to have at least one female director on their boards by December 31, 2019. By December 31, 2021, such corporations were required to have a minimum number of female directors on their boards based on the total size of the corporation's board. Corporations that failed to comply with the law faced a penalty of up to $300,000 per violation.
Three plaintiffs brought a taxpayer challenge to the law, asserting that the law was unconstitutional, and thus any attempt to enforce it would result in an illegal expenditure of public funds. The court agreed, finding that the law violates California's Equal Protection Clause. The court found that the law was presumptively unconstitutional because it made express use of a “suspect” classification (gender). The burden shifted to the State to prove (1) a compelling state interest, (2) that the law was necessary, and (3) that the law was narrowly tailored.
The court first concluded that there was no compelling state interest, finding that the...
President Lee Jae-myung speaks at a Cabinet meeting held at Cheong Wa Dae on October 13. President Lee Jae-myung called for a stern response to the spread of false information regarding eggs rece...