This bill would establish a statewide domestic partner registry, open to same- and opposite-gender couples, and grant domestic partners the same rights and responsibilities automatically afforded by the state of Arizona to married couples.

Some of these rights & responsibilities include:

• Filing state taxes as a couple.
• Joint medical and financial decision-making.
• Inheritance rights
• Rights to hospital visitation and decisions regarding burial and cremation
• Eligible for health and life insurance benefits
• Community Property
• Second-parent adoption

Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,

While you work to resolve the budget crisis, I encourage you to consider enacting a bill that would give a boost to the state budget while protecting Arizona's children and families.

SB 1371 and HB 2743 would grant same- or opposite- gender domestic partners important rights and responsibilities to support their families, including the ability to jointly file state taxes, jointly make medical and financial decisions, enroll in each other's health and life insurance, visit each other in the hospital, among others. This is something that a majority of Arizonans already support.

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law announced in a report on February 4, 2008, that allowing unmarried couples to register as domestic partners would increase state income tax revenue while decreasing state expenditures on means-tested public benefits programs.

SB 1371 and HB 2743 provide real solutions to real problems. As your constituent, I urge you to vote in support of a statewide domestic partner registry.

Sincerely,

Campaign Launched:
February 17, 2008