New Report Sheds Little Light on State’s Groundbreaking Women-On-Boards Law

San Francisco Chronicle (July 10, 2019) The California Secretary of State has published a mid-year report on SB826, the groundbreaking law requiring publicly held companies headquartered in California to have at least one board member who self-identifies as a woman by the end of 2019 or face penalties. By the end of 2021, these companies must have at least two women on five-member boards and at least three women on boards with six or more directors. SB826 is the first law in the United States requiring female representation on corporate boards and it has sparked nationwide praise and scorn. Women’s and other groups see it as a major success of the #MeToo movement. Business groups say it’s likely unconstitutional and favors one type of diversity (women) over others. Unfortunately, the mid-year report is confusing and provides no useful information other than the fact that 184 California-based companies have said they have a female director. It doesn’t say how many don’t have a female director, or even how many are subject to the law. Keith Bishop, a partner at law firm Allen Matkins and a former California Commissioner of Corporations, also had trouble understanding the report. “I didn’t feel like it was at all clear, but I’m also sympathetic,” he said. The interim report published July 1 “is kind of meaningless,” Bishop said. The secretary of state “was given an extremely difficult task given the timing and the way the existing reporting system works. They had to comply, they had to devote resources to generating this report and at the end of the day the report doesn’t tell you very much.”