ABSTRACT
As a California state legislator representing suburban constituents in the San Fernando Valley, a liberal stronghold northwest of Los Angeles, Democrat Howard Berman had risen to majority floor leader by his second term and prior to this thirty-fifth birthday. It was his legislative leadership position that enabled him to engineer a bill through the General Assembly in 1978 that provided a four-month disability leave for new mothers. Four years later, in 1982, while Berman was running for a U.S congressional seat, the California Federal Savings and Loan refused to reinstate Lillian Garland when she returned to work following the birth of her child. It was one of 300 cases filed by employees that year, claiming that their employers had violated the 1978 act. Cal Fed, however, was the only corporation to file a lawsuit in federal court, arguing that the law violated the company’s basic right to design, implement, and monitor its own personnel policies (Elving 1995).
