A couple of years ago Carina Barlow asked for some time off to care for her brother who had a heart attack…but wasn’t allowed to take it:

“I don’t ever want any Californian to ever go through what I went through because of a relationship.”

She and about 20 other supporters delivered eight-thousand postcards to the Governor’s office, urging him to support Democratis Senator Sheila Kuehl’s bill, which expands leave to grandparents and grandchildren, as well as siblings and parents-in-law.  The Senator says it’s a measure she takes personally:

“I’m not married, I don’t have a partner, I don’t have any kids and my parents are dead.  I have a sister, so should I need caretaking, it would fall to her.”

Opponents say it would hurt employers who have to pay for a replacement worker.  The Governor hasn’t taken a position.