Unemployment insurance: benefits: eligibility: reserve accounts: domestic partners.

Existing law provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits to eligible individuals who are unemployed through no fault of their own. Existing law specifies that an individual is disqualified from receiving benefits if the Director of Employment Development finds that he or she left his or her most recent work voluntarily without cause or that he or she has been discharged for misconduct connected with his or her most recent work. Under existing law, an individual may be deemed to have left his or her most recent work with good cause if he or she leaves employment to accompany his or her spouse or domestic partner to a place from which it is impracticable to commute to the employment, and specifies that, for purposes of those provisions, "spouse" includes a person to whom marriage is imminent. Existing law authorizes any employer who is entitled to receive specified notice of an unemployment claim to, within 10 days after mailing of the notice, submit to the Employment Development Department specified facts disclosing whether the claimant for benefits left the employer's employ voluntarily and with good cause under certain circumstances. Existing law provides that if a claimant left under specified circumstances, including, among others, if he or she left the employer's employ to accompany his or her spouse or domestic partner to a place from which it is impracticable to commute to the employment, the benefits paid to the claimant are not charged to the employer's reserve account, as specified. This bill would specify that, for purposes of those provisions governing eligibility for benefits and employer's reserve accounts, "domestic partner" also includes a person to whom domestic partnership, as described, is imminent. Because the bill would provide for additional amounts payable for unemployment benefits from the Unemployment Fund, a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation. This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 1030, 1032, and 1256 of the Unemployment Insurance Code, proposed by AB 2364, to be operative only if AB 2364 and this bill are both chaptered and become effective January 1, 2011, and this bill is chaptered last.