Date:         Mon, 5 Sep 1994 13:59:31 -0400
From: "David B. O'Donnell" <atropos@aol.net>

[ Send all responses to mamurphy@igc.apc.org only. Any responses to
the list or list owner will be returned. ]


 SB 2061 Health Benefits for Domestic Partners has made it to Governor
 Pete Wilson's desk.

Letters are needed to be sent to him encouraging him to sign it into law.
Governor Wilson fax number is (916)445-4633.


Following is a sample letter you can use or modify.
Please let me (mamurphy@igc.apc.org) know is you send a letters.


                                                       September 3, 1994

Governor Pete Wilson
California State Legislature
Sacramento, CA 95814


Dear Governor Wilson:

I would like to express my support for, and ask you to sign, SB 2061,
by Senator Gary Hart, to add domestic partner protections to the Public
Employees' Medical and Hospital Care Act.

Public agencies entrusted with the health care needs of their work force
must be responsive to the changing needs of every kind of employee family.
Over 136 major corporations and 53 public agencies in the country, concerned
with health care for all their employees, have included domestic partner
protections in their health care plans; including cities such as Los Angeles,
San Francisco and Berkeley; educational agencies like Stanford University and
The University of Chicago; and major corporations such as Apple Computer,
Levi Strauss & Co., and The New York Times. Inclusion of domestic partner
protection under an employee health plan demonstrates that good will and
good business work together.

The narrowly defined nuclear family comprises approximately only half of
American families; individuals may share a home, health risks, and medical
expenses, yet may or may not be married. Inclusion of couples, married or
unmarried, in employee health plans, is consistent with our emerging policy
of national health care reform and would offer basic health care protections
for declared partners that would build family strength and stability.

The Public Employees' Retirement System has endorsed, in principle, the
inclusion of domestic partners within its definition of family. SB 2061
offers an opportunity to work out a viable protection which is in the
interests of all employees and all families. In all fairness to the
changing definition of family in America today, domestic partners of
public employees covered by PERS should be granted basic rights of health
and hospital care.

I ask you to sign SB 2061 so domestic partners would be included
in Section 22859.5 of the Public Employees' Medical and
Hospital Care Act.

Sincerely,