County to Form Domestic Partner Registry

Los Angeles County created a formal registry for domestic partners Tuesday, providing a centralized list for businesses that extend benefits to non-married couples but have concerns about who may qualify.

The registry, modeled on similar lists in other cities, does not confer any benefits on domestic partners, but its advocates hope that it will ease the way for more corporations to liberalize their benefits policies.

“More and more private employers have said to me they would be willing to do it if they didn’t have to go through the hassle of defining what is a domestic partnership,” said Los Angeles City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who addressed the county Board of Supervisors in support of the registry.

There may be other effects: Goldberg spoke of an emergency trip to the hospital during which her surgery was held up for 90 minutes because medical staff said they could not allow Goldberg’s longtime partner power of attorney unless they were registered as domestic partners by the government.

Conservative Supervisor Mike Antonovich cast the sole vote against the registry, complaining that it was “pandering to special interests.”

But Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the law, said it was merely government’s recognition of a fact of life in the 1990s.

“This is part of the American landscape now, it has become a part of the relationship between employers and employees,” Yaroslavsky said in an interview. “It is not the novelty it was years ago.”

Dozens of cities and counties--including Los Angeles--extend benefits to domestic partners of their employees, as do about 50 corporations, including Walt Disney Co., Microsoft and Prudential Insurance. Domestic partners are usually homosexual couples in long-term relationships but can include any non-married but committed pair.

As more large organizations have recognized domestic partnerships, government registries listing such relationships have proliferated in cities from New York to Laguna Beach.

It will cost $20 to file an affidavit of domestic partnership with Los Angeles County’s registrar-recorder’s office in Norwalk, the same place where birth certificates and wedding licenses are housed. The statements can be amended for $13 and terminated for $15.

The county registry intentionally leaves the definition of domestic partners vague--requiring signatures affirming only that at least one party lives in or works for Los Angeles County and that the pair are more than 18 years old and consider themselves domestic partners. Signatories also can check off boxes stating that they live together or share property.

“To include a definition would be legislating what Disney could recognize as a domestic partner,” County Counsel Lloyd W. Pellman said.

Antonovich charged that such a vague definition would lead to insurance fraud. Pellman countered that there is no more risk than if a couple signs a marriage license without cohabiting. He added that employers could require that some of the boxes signifying cohabitation be checked before extending benefits.

Goldberg, gay rights activists and county Assessor Kenneth P. Hahn urged supervisors to adopt the registry, saying that it would be both convenient and symbolically important.

“It’s good economics,” said Myron Dean Quon, staff attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, arguing that it will lower the number of uninsured people who depend on county health services.

Hahn made a brief plea for the registry. “I have been in a relationship with my domestic partner for 25 years,” he said, “and I want to urge the board to adopt this ordinance.”