City Council last week approved a measure that would extend domestic-partner benefits to employees of some city contractors.
In a unanimous vote last Thursday, Council passed Councilwoman Blondell Reynolds Brown’s Equal Benefits Bill.
The measure mandates that city contractors receiving more than $250,000 from the city must extend to same-sex partners of employees the same benefits provided to the spouses of heterosexual married employees.
Mayor Nutter is expected to sign the measure into law soon.
“The mayor and the administration supported this legislation, and the mayor is very likely to sign the bill,” said Nutter spokesperson Mark McDonald. “It’s headed toward signing.”
The Law and Government Committee sent the bill to the full council after unanimously approving it last month, and all 17 bipartisan councilmembers cast a vote in favor last week.
Prior to the vote, the council heard testimony on the bill from Jason Landau Goodman, executive director of the Pennsylvania Student Equality Coalition, and Micah Mahjoubian, chair of Liberty City LGBT Democratic Club’s Policy & Advocacy Committee.
Mahjoubian said Liberty City has been working on the measure with Reynolds Brown for some time.
“The Equal Benefits Bill was very important to Liberty City,” Mahjoubian said. “In 2007, we drafted a question asking local candidates if they would support such a measure and, since then, Blondell Reynolds Brown has been working with Liberty City to get that legislation passed. I think she did a wonderful job reaching out and building a real coalition to support this — and not just from the LGBT community. She also talked with members of clergy and the labor community to make sure we could pass this important equality legislation. And it turned out to not be controversial at all.”
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].