*By Bridgette Webb*
Corporate boards are often much smaller than the companies they serve, but their importance shouldn't be underestimated, said Ăsa Regnér, UN Women's deputy executive director.
"Boards influence people's lives, so it's really important who is on those boards," Regnér said Monday in an interview on Cheddar.
That is perhaps why California just passed new legislation that requires public companies in the state to have at least one woman on their boards by the end of 2019. By 2021, a minimum of two women must sit on boards of five or more; three, when boards have more than six people.
For Regnér, it's about corporate America leading by example.
"I think these kinds of legislation are normally really good," she said. It's important "to ask people to actually shape up and do something about the injustice that we see."
But the law didn't sail through without opposition. Many argued it's not the government's right to dictate a company's board, and others argued the law may prioritize gender over other critical kinds of diversity ー like race and ethnicity, for example.
Regnér disagreed.
"There is already a quota going on, but it is an informal quota which favors men with a certain background," she said. "I don't think there is a contradiction to other backgrounds, this is one step I don't think \[demographics\] should fight each other."
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/%20Fostering%20an%20Unstereotyped%20Culture).
House Republicans made post-midnight changes to their sweeping debt ceiling package to win over holdouts, as Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed ahead Wednesday with plans to launch debate and round up support from his slim majority for a vote this week.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol opened his state visit to Washington on Tuesday by touring a NASA facility with Vice President Kamala Harris as the Biden administration looks to deepen ties with a close ally that it sees as only growing in importance in an increasingly complicated Indo-Pacific.
Colorado is set to become the first state to sign a ‘right to repair’ law allowing farmers to fix their own equipment with a bill signing Tuesday afternoon by Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.
President Joe Biden has formally announced he’s seeking reelection.
Three Tennessee lawmakers who became Democratic heroes for facing expulsion after participating in gun control protests visited the White House on Monday, describing themselves as “representatives of a movement" that is demanding greater restrictions on firearms to save lives.
Speaker Kevin McCarthy is hurtling toward one of the most consequential weeks of the new House Republican majority as he labors to pass a partisan package that would raise the nation's debt limit by $1.5 trillion in exchange for steep cuts that some in his own party oppose.
A former advice columnist’s nearly 30-year-old rape claim against Donald Trump has gone to trial.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday formally announced that he is running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” he began when he was sworn into office and to set aside their concerns about extending the run of America’s oldest president for another four years.
The sheriff's office in Carroll County, northeast of Louisville, has hired former Louisville police officer Myles Cosgrove, who fatally shot Taylor in a March 2020 drug raid that used a faulty warrant to break through her door.
The United States has begun facilitating the departure of private U.S. citizens who want to leave Sudan, according to White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
