As a state senator who enjoyed participating in the legislative process, I had to read and vote on numerous bills every year. One that is currently in the news is Senate Bill (SB) 826, written by former State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D – Santa Barbara).
It required California-headquartered corporations to appoint at least one woman to their board of directors by December 31, 2019, and up to three women by December 31, 2021, depending on the size of the board.
Sen. Jackson was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and I served as the committee’s vice chair. When she presented the bill on April 24, 2018, I chaired the meeting. The bill provided quite a discussion among the committee’s members, and you could sense the uncomfortableness in the air as my Democratic colleagues had reservations but were not accustomed to voting against bills from a member of their own party, let alone the chair of the committee….