Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom on Saturday vetoed a bill that would have explicitly outlawed caste discrimination in California, dealing a blow to activists hoping to make the state the first in the nation to enact such a ban and to a first-term lawmaker who shepherded one of the session’s most controversial bills through the legislature.
The bill would have added caste to the definition of ancestry, making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of caste under the Unruh Civil Rights Act, the Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Education Discrimination Act.
Hearings on Senate Bill 403 – by Senator Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) – were among the most attended of the session, with lines stretching down the hallways, hours of public testimony and demonstrations outside the Capitol. The proposal has divided California’s large South Asian community, with passionate lobbying for and against. Assemblymember Ash Kalra, the first Indian American elected to the state legislature, lamented the divide during a hearing.
In his veto message, Newsom said the bill was unnecessary because caste discrimination is already prohibited under existing civil rights protections, which are “to be liberally construed”.
“In California, we believe that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, no matter who they are, where they come from, who they love, or where they live,” Newsom said.
After the bill passed, supporters launched a hunger strike to pressure Newsom into signing it, and held rallies outside the Capitol.
Opponents claimed the legislation would stigmatise Hindus and people from South Asia, where caste – a social hierarchy in which one’s group is inherited – is historically most closely associated. Representatives of the Hindu American Foundation had previously vowed to challenge it in court. The veto is a victory for national Hindu groups such as the Hindu American Foundation and the Coalition of Hindus of North America, which lobbied lawmakers heavily against the bill.
Two Republican state senators, Brian Jones and Shannon Grove, wrote a letter to Newsom on Tuesday urging him to veto the bill. The senators claimed that the bill would “not only target and racially profile South Asian Californians, but also put other California residents and businesses at risk and jeopardise our state’s innovative edge”.
The bill also received pushback from two of Wahab’s progressive colleagues in the Assembly and was amended to make the word “caste” less prominent in the law.
Seattle became the first city to pass a caste discrimination ordinance earlier this year, and Fresno became the first city in California to do so last month.
