Posted on 01/22/2004 10:21:41 PM PST by calcowgirl
SAN FRANCISCO -- A state appeals court here cleared the way Thursday for a ballot measure that will ask voters to nullify a law requiring all but the smallest California businesses to provide health insurance for their workers.
Barring further legal action, voters will decide in November whether to override the hotly debated state law, under which many California businesses would pay 80 percent of their employees' health insurance premiums.
The bill could give up to 1.2 million workers and their families health insurance. Employers, who scored a victory with the ruling, call it a crippling government mandate.
Because the case has been in a legal limbo for months, there isn't enough time for election officials to place the question on the March 2 primary ticket. And Thursday's decision could still be overturned or stalled on appeal.
The California Chamber of Commerce and other groups say the law, which former Gov. Gray Davis signed just before being recalled last year, is too costly.
State lawmakers filed a lawsuit to block the measure from the ballot on grounds the business groups misrepresented what it would do when they gathered the more-than 620,000 signatures of registered voters they needed to force a public vote.
The law requires companies with at least 200 employees to offer health benefits to workers and their dependents by 2006. Companies with 20 to 199 workers would have until 2007 to provide similar coverage to employees only, but companies with 20 to 49 employees wouldn't have to provide insurance unless the Legislature passes a business tax credit to help pay for it. Employers with fewer than 20 employees don't have to offer insurance.
In the lawsuit brought by lawmakers, Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Lloyd Connelly ruled in December that the petitions voters signed didn't give them enough information about what the law would do and issued an order blocking the measure from appearing on the March ballot. The 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco overturned that decision Thursday, saying the petitions accurately described the "chief purpose and points" of the act.
Lawmakers said the petitions signed by registered voters misled them into thinking the law automatically requires insurance for companies with 20-49 employees. They asserted that those signing the petition should have been informed the Legislature must approve certain business tax credits for that category of employees to be covered.
Lawmakers have not approved those tax credits.
Senate President John Burton, D-San Francisco, the author of the insurance-mandate legislation, said Thursday he and his advisers were mulling whether to appeal to the California Supreme Court.
Even if a measure to overturn the law goes before voters, Burton said he'd rather see it on the November ballot.
"We're in better shape to have it on the November ballot when we can mobilize our forces, get our message out and tell people what the bill really does, as opposed to what the Chamber of Commerce says it does," Burton said.
Attorneys for the Chamber of Commerce maintain that the signature petitions signed by registered voters were not misleading.
"We are confident voters will overturn this law," said Sara Lee, a chamber spokeswoman.
The case is Zaremberg v. Superior Court, A104920.
Now the really hard work begins as Burton and his pack of goons plot their smear campaign.
It could also send just as many to the unemployment lines as big and small cap businessess flee the state by the hundreds. It was a bad deal then, and its a bad deal now and to come.
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