From 2019. WTF?
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California’s anti-discrimination law prohibits employment discrimination based on any protected characteristic. The protected characteristics are:
- Race, color
- Ancestry, national origin
- Religion, creed
- Age (40 and over)
- Disability, mental and physical
- Sex, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions)
- Sexual orientation
- Gender identity, gender expression
- Medical condition
- Genetic information
- Marital status
- Military or veteran status
Source
I suppose caste origin could be included in ancestry, but unless California courts have held that to be the case, I think an argument could be made that people discriminated against on the basis of their caste origin might not have access to a legal remedy for that. At the very least, Newsom’s Civil Rights Department should issue some sort of clarifying statement that they look at it that way and will pursue such discrimination cases on that basis.
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… but it seems like the sort of people who object that banning caste discrimination is racist would continue to do so regardless of whether the ban was a law or just a CRD policy 
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God sometimes I wish “Commiefornia” actually is like how it exists in the minds of reactionaries…
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Yeah, that’s essentially what’s been happening, from what I can tell. The state of California sued Cisco a couple of years ago on behalf of an Indian employee who filed a complaint that two of his supervisors, who were from a higher caste, were discriminating against him because he was from a lower caste. The courts sided with the state and held it was impermissible discrimination. Meanwhile, the Hindu American Foundation complained that the suit by the state violated the US Constitution. They seem to basically be arguing that discrimination based on castes isn’t an inherent part of Hinduism and doesn’t exist. But they’re also arguing that specifically calling out caste discrimination in the statute isn’t necessary because it would already be covered under existing law…which is exactly what California argued in the suit that the HAF opposed. It honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
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I don’t think the argument is that “banning caste discrimination is racist.” The argument is “caste discrimination is ALREADY illegal under existing law, so making a new law to specifically call out caste discrimination stigmatizes South Asian/Hindu communities.”
So the objection to the law isn’t about whether such discrimination should be allowed (it shouldn’t) but whether the government should take up a cause that reinforces negative stereotypes against a specific ethnic/racial/religious population.
That is the argument they’re making, but like I said above, when California filed suit for such discrimination under existing law, those same groups opposed that lawsuit. Some of the groups seem to want to believe that caste discrimination doesn’t exist.
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I can’t help being reminded of
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Perhaps a flavor of the “Authoritarianism Zero” centrist that’ll be on offer when this guy runs for pres
This man has more personal and political baggage than a fully loaded A380 kitted out in all economy. He may run for President but he’ll never be President because the oppo research will sink him before Iowa and New Hampshire are over.
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Finally a time where I can unironically use my favorite Rocky IV quote, if he dies, he dies.
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But as you say the courts did side with the state’s position. So for the time being at least it seems that “Caste discrimination is illegal under existing law” is already a settled matter as far as the State of California is concerned even if those groups want to pretend otherwise.
Yes, but at least the HAF was not happy with that outcome. They’re trying to simultaneously argue that existing law will cover cases of caste discrimination and that the state shouldn’t pursue cases of caste discrimination under that existing law because that would discriminate against Hindus. So they’re arguing against their own point.
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Apparently, CA wants to sell it’s own insulin for $30. And he argues that the insurance cos are just going to charger larger premiums, so there is no point to capping costs…
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if so, you’d think he’d have had that on hand for his veto rather than just his hand waving. so i wouldn’t hold my breath much. he went out of his way claiming he knew better than the actual law makers who spent the time to work this out.
to me, his statement sounds reminiscent of “why do we need laws about hate crimes, when murder is already illegal.” 
and i think the connection to silicon valley donors is spot on
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It doesn’t happen but if it did it wouldn’t be a big deal anyways is an unfortunately common rhetorical strategy usually employed by reactionaries to defend discrimination.
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You can bet serious coin that it was rich donors that bought the veto from him.
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“I don’t see color caste!!!”
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Oh for sure. He’s handled this poorly. I’m not surprised. As I said, I’ve never been a fan.
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If the prices are being kept low by the exploitation and abuse of workers? Yeah, go ahead and raise those prices, that’s perfectly fine with me. If it gets to be too much, I’ll just eat fewer strawberries. The correct price is the one that’s not harming the workers, even if it reduces what I can afford.
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Exactly. And that argument ($20/pint) is decoupling the cost of goods from wage rates. If people were paid fair wages, we could afford to pay more for food. And plenty of Dems are championing living wages for all.
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