Ct of Appeals:Arizona must cover gay state workers' partners during dispute
Arizona cannot cancel the insurance benefits for the domestic partners of state and university workers who are gay, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.In a unanimous opinion, the three-judge panel said the state is not obligated to provide health insurance for its workers or their families.
“But when a state chooses to provide such benefits, it may not do so in an arbitrary or discriminatory manner that adversely affects particular groups that may be unpopular,” Judge Mary Schroeder wrote for the court.
The ruling does not end the efforts by the administration of Gov. Jan Brewer to curtail the benefits. Instead, it simply requires the state to continue providing the coverage until there is a full trial on the merits of the state’s claim that it is entitled to provide different benefits.
Partners of gay workers had no benefits until 2008 when Brewer’s predecessor, Janet Napolitano, pushed through a change in rules to redefine what constitutes a “family.”
But the process of making that change by rule, instead of by statute, rankled legislators.
After Napolitano quit two years ago to take a job in the Obama administration, the Republican-controlled Legislature tucked a provision into the budget to statutorily define what constitutes “dependents” for the purpose of insurance coverage. That change specifically excluded the partners of those who are not married, whether gay or not.
In upholding the injunction, Schroeder noted that the state had argued it needed to make the change because of budgetary considerations. But she said there was little evidence presented of the actual cost.
In court papers, the state figured it paid out about $4 million in claims for domestic partner benefits in the first year of the change and $5.5 million the following year. There were no figures about how much of that was related solely to gay and lesbian employees.
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