The actual law[1] says you can expand the board:

>SEC. 2. Section 301.3 is added to the Corporations Code, to read:

301.3. (a) No later than the close of the 2019 calendar year, a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California shall have a minimum of one female director on its board. A corporation may increase the number of directors on its board to comply with this section.

But it goes on to say:

>(b) No later than the close of the 2021 calendar year, a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California shall comply with the following:

>(1) If its number of directors is six or more, the corporation shall have a minimum of three female directors.

>(2) If its number of directors is five, the corporation shall have a minimum of two female directors.

>(3) If its number of directors is four or fewer, the corporation shall have a minimum of one female director.

So it appears that if you currently have, for example, five directors that are all men and they continue to be directors until 2021, you'll need to fire two of them and hire two women directors OR hire three new female directors.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

no, it's called a grandfather (no pun intended) clause

I don't see anything in the actual law[1] that grandfathers existing corporations. It states the law is applicable to:

>a publicly held domestic or foreign corporation whose principal executive offices, according to the corporation’s SEC 10-K form, are located in California

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

No. You can expand the board.

What if you can't afford to?

You can have board members that aren't shareholders like Al Gore being on Apple's board. You pay them in options like board advisors but they can vote.

So you give votes on your board of directors to token representatives with no skin in the game?

Like all major corporation boards? Amazon and Google have college professors, Oakley has Michael Jordan, Tesla has the owner of Ebony Magazine, Boeing has the former ambassador to Japan. Can you name a company that all board members have skin in the game? I can't.

options cost money.

I cannot believe this would be the case.

Technically, no -- the person selected to be fired could not be fired on the sole basis of their gender because they are the same gender as everyone else on the board.

On the flip side though the Equal Opportunity Employment act disallows hiring as well as firing based on gender or discrimination thereof.

So if it can be proven that someone has a hiring preference for women over men that is a violation of existing law.

..unless there is a woman on the board?

That's the technicality -- you only have to fire someone if there are no women on the board, by assumption.

The way the law is written, if there are 5 people on the board and 1 woman, you need to fire one of the men and add a woman.