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California State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, represented at the Families Belong Together event on June 30, said the law requires state-owned companies to have at least one female director is a "win-win-win".(Photo: Juan Carlo / Ventura County Star / USA TODAY Network)

Beginning next year, California's corporate boardrooms will have to look different.

Governor Jerry Brown signed a law on Sunday that will require all California-listed companies to have at least one woman on their board by the end of 2019. The required minimum will be increased to two from here. at the end of 2021.

No other state has passed similar legislation, although a handful of them have approved non-binding resolutions for a similar purpose of gender equality.

Although Brown expressed doubts about the law, which was criticized as a government intrusion into the private sector, he saw more benefits than inconveniences in his passage.

More: Women's Quotas: California Reflects on Key Bill to Strengthen Women Executives

"There have been many objections to this bill and serious legal issues have been raised," Brown said in a statement. "I do not minimize the potential flaws that could indeed be fatal to its final implementation. Nevertheless, recent events in Washington, DC – and beyond – clearly show that many are not getting the message. "

Mr. Brown's comments seemed to refer to last week's Senate hearings regarding Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, Supreme Court nominees, who accused him of sexual assault while they were both teenagers.

The FBI has since opened a substantive investigation into Kavanaugh at the request of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Although several studies have shown that companies with at least one female director perform better than their exclusively male counterparts, progress towards gender equality in conference rooms has been slow at best.

State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson, a Democrat from Santa Barbara who co-wrote the bill, pointed out that the percentage of women in California has barely increased from 15.5% in 2013 to 16% this year .

The bill included statistics for 2017 indicating that a quarter of California public companies listed in the Russell 3000 index did not have women directors. At the national level, almost half of the 75 largest IPOs in 2014-2016 were launched by companies without women.

"I think it's a giant leap for women, but also for our businesses and our economy," Jackson told USA's TODAY. "It's a win-win-win."

Jackson said she was optimistic. Other states will follow the California initiative in the same way that the equal pay bill it signed in 2015 has become a model for similar legislation in most of the country.

However, Jackson acknowledged that this legislation may face legal challenges. The California Chamber of Commerce strongly opposes the bill and has questioned its federal and federal constitutionality.

"I hope that companies, rather than fighting against it, will recognize its value and take the lead in joining forces and bringing greater diversity to their conference rooms," Jackson said.

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