Mayor Pushes To Restore Domestic Partner Health Benefits Despite Federal Ruling

City Council has started the process to potentially reinstitute the health insurance for city employees that a voter-approved ordinance took away.

El Paso Mayor John Cook introduced an ordinance on Tuesday that would give back the health benefits to gay and unwed partners of city employees and the unintended targets of the voter-initiated ordinance.

Last November, voters approved to take away those health benefits. Religious group El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values spearheaded the inititiative to put the item on the ballot and actually worded the ordinance voters saw.

Because the ordinance only mentioned city employees, their spouses and dependent children – excluded groups, such as some retirees, elected officials and affiliated contractors will lose their health insurance. They are unintended targets of the voter-approved ordinance.

Some elected officials, domestic partners and retirees sued the city in an effort to trump the ordinance and keep their health insurance. Because the majority of city council has been opposed to taking away the health insurance, El Pasoans for Traditional Family Values intervened in the lawsuit and defended their ordinance.

The plaintiffs wanted the ordinance struck on two grounds. They alleged it prevented them from obtaining health insurance, thus violating the contract they had with the insurance company, and that they were denied equal protection under the law, meaning, they were singled out for discrimination.

Federal Judge Frank Montalvo ruled the plaintiffs failed to prove both arguments.

That’s not all Montalvo mentioned in his ruling, said Mayor John Cook. “The ruling said you can’t just pick a class of people and discriminately decide you’re going to treat them differently than everybody else, it’s called equal protection under the law,” said Cook.

That’s why the mayor says it’s all or nothing.

Either all of the domestic partners and the unintended targets, such as judges and some retirees lose their health insurance or the benefits are restored to all.

“Knowing those two things – that hundreds of people will be impacted by what the people voted for, and number two, knowing that if we just tried to do what we think the drafters of the ordinance wanted in the first place which was to punish domestic partners, that we would end up losing and spending precious tax payer dollars, I thought the best thing to do was to restore benefits to all city employees and their dependents”, the Mayor said.

He faces stern opposition from the religious community that fought for the ordinance.

“This council in the past has been acting more like a dictatorship than a democracy. I have personally spoken to many, many voters these past few weeks, and what I’m hearing is ‘why vote, this council is going to do what they want anyway,” Sonia Brown told city council She’s a member of El Paso For Traditional Family Values (EPFTFV) who also recently made an unsuccessful run for city council.

Tuesday’s move was only an introduction to the ordinance – it gives council the green light to have a full discussion and make a final decision next week — a meeting that will most likely be contentious, with sentiments on the issue brewing for nearly two years.

“We’re likely to hear from the religious fundamentalists who want to exclude one group of people because of the way they were born and not because of a lifestyle choice and I think you’ll also hear from people in this community who pride themselves on El Paso being an open, tolerant, progressive city that wants to treat everybody equally and I consider myself strongly in that camp, and I think frankly the majority of council does, too, so I’m very hopeful it will pass,” said City Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

The majority on council believe the issue is about equality. “I’ve always done whatever I think is the right thing to do, and I think it’s about time that people stopped finding what’s popular and making it right, they should find out what’s right and try to make it popular,” said Mayor John Cook.

But EPFTFV members believe their votes have been ignored by the people who are supposed to represent them.

“It’s very unfair to our voters, to fellow El Pasoans and that takes a major toll and that’s why our people don’t come out and vote because they know their vote doesn’t count because of the way city council runs their agenda. All they care about is themselves and have no respect for the fellow El Pasoans,” said Raul Castaneda.

Even some on council, who have initially voted for the benefits have changed their stance. Rep. Eddie Holguin voted against the introduction. He said he is personally for the benefits, but feels obligated to represent the voters’ wishes. He and Rep. Emma Acosta were the only council members to vote against the introduction.

Representative Ann Morgan Lilly, who is in a heated re-election campaign, initially voted in favor of the benefits, but recently vowed to stand against them when accepting an endorsement from former political candidates.

On Tuesday, she voted to continue the discussion. Council will discuss the issue next Tuesday morning.