The major piece of legislation affecting domestic partnerships was AB 43 (Leno) which would have enacted the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act ending the state's denial of marriage licenses to same sex couples in California. The Governor vetoed the bill indicating that the courts should resolve this issue.
Significant domestic partnership legislation that were signed into law included: SB 105 (Migden) clarifying SB 1827 (Migden), Chapter 802, Statutes of 2006, which enacted the requirement that registered domestic partners use the same tax filing status as married persons, that a registered domestic partner or a former registered domestic partner will be treated as a spouse or former spouse; SB 559 (Kehoe) allowing registered domestic partners whose property was reassessed due to a change of ownership between January 1, 2000 and January 1, 2006, to apply to the county assessor to receive a reversal of the reassessment; AB 14 (Laird) enacting the Civil Rights Act of 2007, and cross-referencing protected classes in 51 anti-discrimination provisions located in 12 state codes to the Unruh Civil Rights Act; and AB 102 (Ma) enacting the Name Equality Act of 2007, which among other things, allows one party or both parties to a marriage or registered domestic partnership to change their name by entering the new name on either a marriage license application or certificate of registered domestic partnership.
