State Senate Sends Pants-at-Work Bill to Governor

Reversing itself, the state Senate sent the governor a bill that would make it illegal for employers to deny women the option of wearing pantsuits or slacks to work.

Sen. Lucy Killea (I-San Diego), who previously had opposed the bill on grounds that it trivialized advancements made by women, cast the decisive 21st vote.

A spokesman said Gov. Pete Wilson has not yet taken a position on the bill.

The bill emerged from the Assembly last spring as a relatively non-controversial proposal that would make it an illegal discriminatory practice for an employer to prohibit a woman from wearing pants at work.

But it was narrowly scuttled in the Senate twice last week by opponents who charged that it unnecessarily interfered with the right of employers to establish dress standards for workers.

Eight female members of the Assembly then marched on the stately Senate chambers, suggesting that the upper house was making a mistake that could anger roughly half the voting population.

On Wednesday in the final hours of the two-year legislative session, the Senate reversed itself, passing the measure 21 to 15 and sending it to the governor.

They inserted the defeated bill into a pending measure by Sen. Charles Calderon (D-Whittier), which would stiffen the fines for charging higher prices based on gender.

Calderon offered the bill on the Senate floor Wednesday as an attempt to reduce discriminatory pricing and to recognize in the law the freedom of women to wear pants at work. “Why would any employer want to require dresses and skirts only?” Calderon asked. “We are not telling an employer how to run their businesses.”

A spokeswoman for Assemblywoman Diane Martinez (D-Monterey Park), who authored the original legislation, said the measure exempts employers who require women workers to wear uniforms or similar clothing.

On an initial roll call Wednesday, the bill fell two votes. Then, the 20th favorable vote was cast, followed by Killea’s.

She later said that she still considered the pants issue an “inconsequential matter,” but that she voted for the bill because she favored its new prohibitions against discriminatory gender pricing practices.