BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 959
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
959 (Chiu)
As Amended March 26, 2015
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+---------------------|
|Accountability |8-0 |Salas, Lackey, | |
| | |Brough, Burke, | |
| | |Frazier, Irwin, | |
| | |Medina, Rodriguez | |
| | | | |
|----------------+------+---------------------+---------------------|
|Appropriations |13-0 |Gomez, Bonta, | |
| | |Calderon, Chang, | |
| | |Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Eduardo Garcia, | |
| | |Gordon, Holden, | |
| | |Quirk, Rendon, | |
| | |Weber, Wood | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires certain state departments, in the course of
collecting demographic data directly or by contract as to the
ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians, to collect voluntary
AB 959
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self-identification information pertaining to sexual orientation
and gender identity. Specifically, this bill:
1)Applies only to the following state departments:
a) The Department of Health Care Services;
b) The Department of Public Health;
c) The Department of Social Services; and,
d) The Department of Aging.
2)Requires collected data to be reported to the Legislature during
the regular process of reporting demographic data.
3)Requires collected data to be reported to the public in
accordance with state and federal law, except for personal
identifying information, which shall be deemed confidential and
shall not be disclosed.
4)Requires the specified state departments to comply as soon as
possible, but no later than July 1, 2017.
EXISTING LAW requires a state agency, board, or commission that
directly, or by contract, collects demographic data as to the
ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians, to use separate
collection categories and tabulations for each major Asian group
and each major Pacific Islander group. This data is required to
be made available to the public in accordance with state and
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federal law, except for personal identifying information, which
shall be deemed confidential (Government Code Section 8310.5)
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, minor costs to four state agencies to update forms and
information collection procedures.
COMMENTS: State government agencies routinely collect demographic
data on race, ethnicity, gender, and disability on a wide variety
of state forms and surveys. The purpose of this data is to help
better understand disparities in underserved communities. Current
law only requires any state agency, board, or commission that
directly, or by contract, collects demographic data to separate
the collection of this data by major Asian groups. The law is
silent on demographic data collection based on sexual orientation
or gender identity. This bill would fill this gap in
state-collected demographic data to include sexual orientation or
gender identity data collection.
According to the author, the inclusion of this data collection
would help to end the long-standing systematic discrimination
towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.
The author states that the lack of hard evidence on the health
and well-being disparities impacting LGBT communities essentially
keeps these individuals invisible to the state and hence excluded
from government funding and services that address health
disparities and the effects of stigma and discrimination.
The author seeks to reduce health and well-being disparities for
LGBT communities by ensuring that sexual orientation and gender
identity data is collected on a statewide basis by key government
agencies that deal with health and human services. This bill
requires the Departments of Health Care Services, Public Health,
Aging and Social Services to include the collection of sexual
orientation and gender identity data in the course of their
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current demographic data collection efforts.
This bill is intentionally non-specific about which programs or
surveys currently conducted by each department should include
sexual orientation and gender identity data to provide the
departments the flexibility to implement its overall goal. It
also explicitly emphasizes the need for privacy when collecting
this data for the safety of those who voluntarily self-identify.
The aggregated sexual orientation and gender identity data
collected as a result of this bill would be reported to the
Legislature and made publicly available.
Analysis Prepared by:
William Herms / A. & A.R. / (916) 319-3600 FN:
0000536