D.C. Council OKs sweeping partners bill
Posted by on December 14, 2005, 4:43 am
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Washington Blade
December 9, 2005
http://www.washblade.com/2005/12-9/news/localnews/rightsdc.cfm
D.C. Council OKs sweeping partners bill
Gay couples, others would gain new rights, obligations
By LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Efforts to increase legal recognition for gay couples closer to a level equal to married couples under D.C. law got a big boost this week with a unanimous vote by the D.C. Council.
Councilmembers gave preliminary approval Dec. 6 to a bill granting full rights of inheritance as well as the obligation to pay alimony and child support to couples, gay and straight, who register as domestic partners. The bill's sweeping language allows any two unmarried adults who live together and are financially interdependent to become domestic partners.
The far-reaching bill provides the city's domestic partners with at least six new benefits, or obligations, that currently are available only to married couples.
The Council is expected to give final approval to the bill, the Domestic Partnership Equality Act of 2005, either at its Dec. 20 session or its first session in January. Mayor Anthony Williams is expected to sign the measure, which would then go to Congress for a 30-day review period, and would become law if Congress does not veto it.
LGBT Office approved
Also during the Dec. 6 session, the Council reversed a decision last month to table a bill introduced by gay Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) enshrining into law the Mayor's Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Affairs. By voice vote, the Council removed the bill from the "table" and approved it on a "first reading" vote.
Williams created the LGBT Affairs office last year by executive order. Earlier this year, the mayor said Graham's bill would interfere with his ability to choose the office's director and staff, and he was reluctant to support the legislation. However, last week Williams reversed that position, saying he would support the bill.
Graham said the vote to approve his Office of LGBT Affairs bill came after a team of gay activists led by the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club waged an aggressive campaign. The effort appeared to have countered an earlier campaign by the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance to defeat the bill on grounds that an LGBT Affairs office was not needed and would become a political patronage plum for an incumbent mayor.
"I think members of the Council realized that the overwhelming majority in the community supports this office and supports this legislation," Graham said after the vote.
Before approving Graham's LGBT office bill, the Council added amendments proposed by gay Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large) that placed the office in the Executive Office of the Mayor and authorized the mayor to appoint the director of the office without Council approval.
Only 4 states offer more couples' rights
The domestic partner bill, first introduced by Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At-Large) last February, was placed on the Council's consent agenda after members expressed support for the measure and none called for discussion on the floor. It passed by unanimous voice vote.
Among its provisions is the recognition of domestic partners and their children as legal heirs should a partner die without a will; a series of rights and benefits for surviving partners and children equal to those available to surviving married spouses under the city's property laws; immunity from testifying against a partner in civil or criminal proceedings; legal standing to sue for negligence in the event of a wrongful death of a partner; and the right to make legally binding "pre-marital" agreements.
The pending legislation also provides power of attorney to manage financial, medical and legal matters if one partner becomes incapacitated, and offers protection for private conversations between partners with doctors and religious figures, such as ministers, priests or rabbis.
If the bill ultimately becomes law, the level of legal recognition for gay couples in the District of Columbia would rise dramatically over that provided by the city's current domestic partners law and the level of recognition in almost every other state in the country.
Only four states offer higher levels of recognition. Massachusetts is the only state to marry gay couples, while Vermont and Connecticut provide for civil unions, which include almost all the state-level rights and obligations of marriage.
California's D.P. law offers some benefits not provided under the proposed D.C. statute, including automatic stepparent adoption rights. The District's D.P. ordinance goes further than domestic partner laws in New Jersey and Hawaii, however, by providing child support and alimony obligations. The other 44 states do not offer any legal recognition for same-sex couples.
D.C. law extends to straight couples, others
None of the other states offers domestic partner recognition for opposite-sex couples, as is provided under D.C.'s existing domestic partners law and which would be broadened under the Mendelson bill. The existing D.C. domestic partners law also allows certain blood relatives to become domestic partners, such as a mother and an adult daughter or a grandfather and an adult grandchild.
The late D.C. Council Chair John Wilson added the later provision to the law at the time he drafted it in 1992 as a means of providing expanded health benefits for relatives of D.C. government employees, as well as a way to help family members care for one another.
Williams and some gay activists have suggested taking out that provision, saying it could make the law too cumbersome as more benefits and obligations are added through future legislation.
Sanja Partalo, Mendelson's legislative analyst on the Judiciary Committee, said Mendelson and members of the committee considered the impact of retaining this "blood relative" provision in current law. Partalo said they could find no negative impact on the new provisions proposed under the Mendelson bill and decided against eliminating the blood relative provision.
Mendelson's bill amends the city's existing D.P. law, which defines domestic partners as two persons at least 18 years old, either of the same or the opposite gender, who live together, are the sole domestic partner of the other, and who are not married.
"This legislation is not about gay marriage," a legislative report prepared by the Council's Judiciary Committee said. Mendelson chairs the committee that issued the report.
The report, while outlining the bill's provisions, also stated what it does not cover - perhaps to assuage critics in Congress.
According to the report, the bill doesn't provide full, across-the-board recognition of same-sex family members under the city's family law statutes. Unlike California and Connecticut laws, it does not provide retirement and survivor benefits for domestic partners of D.C. government employees.
The report states that the bill also "will not confer the right to file taxes jointly," something the California statute provides, and won't provide the same adoption rights for the children of a domestic partner that are in place for married spouses.
For nearly 10 years, Congress barred the District from implementing its first domestic partner's law, the Health Care Benefits Expansion Act, which the Council passed in 1992.
That law allowed domestic partners to register their relationships with the D.C. government and provided health insurance benefits for domestic partners of D.C. government employees. It also required health care facilities such as hospitals to allow domestic partners to visit a partner and granted D.C. government employees family medical leave to care for a domestic partner.
Congress lifted its "hold" on the law in 2002 after the Bush administration indicated it had no objections.
Partially out of fear of congressional interference, the Council in 1992 added a provision requiring domestic partners of employees to pay 100 percent of the costs of the health benefits. Fewer than 100 D.C. government employees signed up for the benefits as of earlier this year because the high costs for the premiums made the benefits impractical, gay activists said.
The Council was expected to amend the law through a separate bill introduced earlier this year by Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) to allow domestic partners of D.C. government employees to pay 25 percent of the health benefit costs - the same amount paid by employees' married spouses.
In another bill introduced by Evans, the Council voted Dec. 6 to exempt domestic partners from a tax on the health insurance benefits offered by the D.C. government as well as private employers. Under the city's current tax law, health insurance benefits for domestic partners are treated as taxable income while the same benefits are tax exempt for married spouses.
During the past four years, the Council passed other domestic partners measures that provided additional benefits, including the ability of partners to jointly sign the title to real property and the title to motor vehicles.
A study commissioned by the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance found that the D.C. marriage law provides about 212 rights, benefits and obligations for married couples in the District. GLAA, a small group of vocal, longtime activists, plans to lobby the Council and mayor to provide each of those rights, benefits and obligations to domestic partners through an "incremental" approach to advancing the rights of same-sex couples.
The group has called on Williams and the Council to hold off on introducing a same-sex marriage recognition bill on grounds that Congress would step in to overturn it and possibly pass legislation barring the city from recognizing gay marriage in the future.
In another voice vote, the Council gave final approval of a separate bill introduced by Graham that would amend the city's Human Rights Act to strengthen nondiscrimination protection for transgender people. The bill, the Human Rights Clarification Amendment Act of 2005, adds the terms "gender identity and expression" to the categories against which discrimination is prohibited.
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