California Revisiting Travel Ban
A symbolic gesture is now highly impractical, if not harmful.
AP (“California may end travel ban to states with anti-LGBTQ laws“):
When North Carolina in 2016 banned transgender people from using the bathroom of their gender identity in public buildings, California retaliated by banning state-funded travel to that state and any other state with laws it deemed discriminatory against LGBTQ people.
But seven years later, California now bans state-funded travel to nearly half of the country following a surge of anti-LGBTQ legislation in mostly Republican-led states.
The prohibition means sports teams at public colleges and universities have had to find other ways to pay for road games in states like Arizona and Utah. And it has complicated some of the state’s other policy goals, like using state money to pay for people who live in other states to travel to California for abortions.
Wednesday, state Senate leader Toni Atkins announced legislation that would end the ban and replace it with an advertising campaign in those states that promotes acceptance and inclusion for the LGBTQ community. The bill would set up a fund to pay for the campaign, which would accept private donations and state funding — if any is available.
“I think polarization is not working,” said Atkins, who is a lesbian. “We need to adjust our strategy. We know what we need to do, but we need to be able to be there to do it.”
Overturning the ban could be difficult in the California Legislature, where 10% of lawmakers now identify as LGBT. Assemblymember Evan Low, a Democrat from Campbell who authored the travel ban in 2016, said he supports the advertising campaign but said “we shouldn’t completely end California’s state-funded travel ban without having an alternative action in combating discrimination.”
“We can’t back down, especially as a record amount of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation is being introduced,” said Low, who is gay.
California’s travel ban has been in effect since 2017. The state Attorney General keeps a list of states subject to the ban, a list that has grown quickly as several states have passed laws restricting doctors from providing gender-affirming care to minors and stopping transgender women and girls from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity.
The unworkability of the law has been apparent for some time now. A July 2022 NYT report (“Why California Bans State-Funded Travel to Nearly Half of States“) noted that the original ban, which applied to only four states, was “mostly symbolic” but had become a nuisance.
At least partly to blame is a summer vacation that Gov. Gavin Newsom took to Montana, which is on the list of banned states. Personal travel isn’t off-limits and Newsom’s office says his state-funded security detail doesn’t violate the law. But the optics were attention-grabbing, coming right after he railed against Republican-led states for embracing conservative policies.
[…]
Critics say that the ban clearly isn’t having its desired impact, given that the list has exploded rather than shrunk. Citing the law’s many loopholes and some problems it has created for academics in California, the Los Angeles Times’s editorial board last week recommended the law be repealed and a Sacramento Bee columnist said it’s pointless.
“California’s laws are for California. As much as we like to impose our values on other states, it just doesn’t work that way,” the Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio told me. “It’s a feel-good measure that really has zero effect.”
The same piece, though, notes a more fundamental issue:
But Low, the bill’s author and chairman of the California Legislative L.G.B.T.Q. Caucus, said the criticisms missed the mark. The law wasn’t intended to be punitive, or to pit states against each other. It was supposed to prevent state workers from having to travel to places where they may be discriminated against, he said.
These anti-L.G.B.T.Q. measures are “incredibly dangerous laws that are hurting the most vulnerable,” he told me, and their spread across the nation only reinforces that California employees shouldn’t be required to set foot in those places for work.
“The fundamental spirit of it is we will not send Californians in harm’s way,” Low said.
Still, as Aaron Carroll, chief health officer of Indiana University notes, the harm works both ways.
When it comes to research and education, though, such laws can do more harm than good.
At a recent meeting in San Francisco, I met Terrell Winder, a University of California Santa Barbara assistant professor of sociology. One of his ethnography projects focuses on spirituality in Black communities. He planned to attend a conference in New Orleans that focuses on nontraditional forms of worship. But since Louisiana is on the banned travel list for California, he was told that he couldn’t use his public university funds to go.
He is also working on a project using qualitative research to better understand how Black, queer men navigate what it means to be gay in a Black-majority city. Before Louisiana fell under the ban, he had conducted 20 interviews with such men in Louisiana and looked forward to returning to the South to interview new participants and follow up with former ones. AB 1887 changed all that.
“My work depends on building relationships and trust with participants, many of whom understandably can be suspicious of research agendas,” Dr. Winder said. “When you have an ongoing project like this, and you make commitments to visit that have to be broken, it hurts the relationship.”
Preventing the use of university funds by faculty to do research in those states is bound to backfire. If states like California don’t allow researchers like Dr. Winder to easily travel to states that discriminate against L.B.G.T.Q. people, research into the ramifications of such policies, by many who might want to conduct it, will be prevented. More than half of African Americans live in the South. It’s likely that a large proportion of Black L.B.G.T.Q. people live there, too.
In addition to cutting off many people whom AB 1887 is intended to help, it’s also putting the careers of faculty members, especially junior ones, at risk by making it much harder to do their jobs and network.
Defenders of the law argue that educators and researchers can use other, nonstate funds to pay for travel. As a more established professor, I, for instance, have external grants and access to other sources of funding that I can dip into. But junior faculty members are much more dependent on university funds to kick-start their careers.
To achieve promotion with tenure, an assistant professor usually needs to show significant success in education, service and research. One of the ways a professor does that is by presenting at national conferences and establishing a reputation as an expert in his or her field. If such conferences are held in states that are on the no-travel list, however, some are stuck.
Jon Goodwin, an assistant professor of counseling, clinical and school psychology who also works at U.C. Santa Barbara, is interested in how to support unusually gifted students. He recently had a proposal accepted at the National Association for Gifted Children Annual Convention, the must-attend event in his field. He looked forward to presenting his work and networking with other like-minded individuals.
Unfortunately, the conference was held in Indianapolis this year. Because Indiana is on the banned list for passing a law similar to Georgia’s (overriding Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto), he could not travel there using work funds. He wound up paying about $1,700 out of pocket to participate in the meeting. Colleagues from other states could use their work funds for travel.
“These types of travel restrictions disproportionally affect those who work in the social and behavioral sciences,” Dr. Goodwin told me. “They prevent us from interacting with communities that are adversely impacted by discriminatory laws. We can’t disseminate our work to them or learn anything new about them.”
There’s also the very real irony that, for all practical purposes, this bans travel to LGBTQ-friendly blue cities within red states. The conventions aren’t being held out in the boonies but in places like Atlanta, Houston, Nashville, and Indianapolis.
Aside from practicalities, I’m not sure how these laws (Washington, New York, Vermont, Minnesota, and Connecticut have variations as well) pass Constitutional muster. Given how many people are employed by state governments, these bans would surely violate the so-called Dormant Commerce Clause.
Hard disagree. The travel ban applies financial pressure on states doing horrible things. If that pressure comes from their blue cities, that’s fine. If it comes from hotels and convention centers, cool. If it comes from vendors and employees of these places, great.
Nobody is going to schedule a conference that targets state employees in a place that California can’t attend. We are 12% of the U.S. population.
That’s going to have an impact.
@Tony W: While that sounds quite logical, the facts don’t support the analysis. Since the ban was passed, it’s gone from covering four states to twenty-something.
@James Joyner: How is that a problem?
More money for states that behave in a way that preserves civil rights for minorities?
I hit “enter” too soon, and can’t get the edit to pop up.
My point is, in that Indiana example – the organizers will learn that they need to be careful about where they schedule conferences. And many attendees won’t dip into their own pockets, which will reduce attendance.
This means that exactly the right things are happening as a result of the ban.
I support the ban. It’s not a slam dunk, though. This hits home for us as my wife has refused to travel to Texas or Florida for book events. It’s complicated by the fact that, for the most part, she’d be presenting to schools in blue cities. But between the bigotry and the gun worship I am happy to remove the Confederacy from the list of places where I’ll spend my tourist money. And I’d much prefer my state tax money not go to fascist states. I certainly would not want to subject decent Californian public servants to the overt hostility they might encounter in a place like Alabama.
@Tony W:
Except it’s not just about booking conferences. It’s any travel paid for by the state. Athletic games, training, academic visits, meetings of government officials, etc.
It’s not punishing the red states. It’s punishing the people from California who want–or need–to travel to other states in order to do their jobs and/or advance their careers.
@Tony W:
Californians aren’t banned, which is a shame, but rather California employees using state funds are banned.
That’s 234,000 directly, excepting CA state university employees.
Including Cal state and U Cal employees you can add another 300,000 being generous. And a small number of those employees go to conferences outside the state in any given year. 500,000 people with maybe 10% who travel outside the state aren’t going to make much of an impact.
This U of Cal bulletin lists 23 states
Wouldn’t the fact that the state is regulating state funds kind of make this outside of the Dormant commerce clause? And if it didn’t then wouldn’t schools in small blue states get to sue Text book makers if they only catered to the standers of say Texas? And what about the laws in Red states that try and regulate what their citizens do in other states re: abortion.
While I get what James is saying I’m thinking that this might open up a whole can o’ worms in Dormant commerce clause jurisprudence. Which could be good or bad depending.
@JKB: Why do you hate Californians? Don’t you realize we have more conservatives in California than in any other state?
@Mu Yixiao: Again, where is the concern? What is the problem if it becomes unprofitable or inconvenient to hold a sports game, conference, meeting, etc. in a state that has a terrible human rights record?
Over time, organizers will learn to hold such assemblies in states that are not banned by 20+ states, if they want attendees.
Win/Win
It’s a limited form of sanctions, which we’ve seen take a long time to work and can be circumvented.
@Tony W:
That’s the idea, certainly. In reality, at least in Indianapolis, we are facing a blockbuster convention season, and one of the strongest pipelines of conventions/big occurrences in our city’s history. Three of the four largest planned/in-progress builds are hotel towers spurred by booming international and out of state travel coming into the city for conventions and large events.
I’m not making a moral judgment on California’s move, I’m just saying it doesn’t seem to be creating the desired results.
I think perhaps there’s not much overlap in the Venn Diagram of “Conventions/Events Large Enough to Materially Impact a City to a Degree the State Government Feels Pressure” and “Conventions/Events Small Enough to be Impacted by California State Employee Travel.”
@Tony W:
People aren’t paying money to these “states” except for incidental taxes. They aren’t paying money for airline tickets, hotels, and food primarily.
I think the point is that this policy probably hurts California as much or more than the targeted states, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter much. California is the biggest state in the nation, but official travel spending is a rounding error at best in the banned states – certainly not enough to be any kind of serious financial incentive to get the state to change its policies. It’s a tiny bit of tax revenue lost and the majority of the impact – still tiny – is going to fall on individual businesses in the hospitality industry who may or may not agree with what the state government is doing.
If anything, it’s counterproductive as the Republicans in those states will not want to be seen “caving” to those “California liberals.”
And it’s really not a good look when the Governor makes a convenient exception for himself.
No edit button – the second sentence should be: “They ARE paying money…”
Bah, no edit button. Sorry for the double post.
But there aren’t 20 other states that have banned travel to anti-abortion states. There’s one state*, banning official state employee travel (a miniscule subset), to 20 other states. Hell, even the governor of that state is travelling to banned states the moment he goes on vacation!
*And a handful of others, with the number fluctuating with which issue caused a particular travel ban, abortion or LGBTQ+
@Rick DeMent:
California, as noted, has a large number of LGBTQ employees. Sending one of them to Florida on business is like sending a Jew to Germany in, say, 1938, or a woman to Afghanistan today. Shall we only allow straight employees to travel? Or are we supposed to require LGBTQ employees to travel in dangerous places?
@Michael Reynolds:
Nobody is talking about requiring people to travel. We’re talking about allowing them to.
@Mu Yixiao:
Yes, but you’re creating a two-tier system where straight, cis employees will have advantage over LGBTQ employees. Everyone’s agreeing there’s some benefit in this kind of travel, and we cannot in effect deny that benefit to gay workers.
@Neil Hudelson: Great! Then those states who are doing evil things to LGBTQ+ folks won’t mind California state employees not attending. They won’t even notice, no harm done! It’s like my personal boycott of Chik-fil-A – their drive-through is teaming with people who don’t care about LGBTQ+ rights. But I do care, and I am doing what (little) I can to help the little guy by boycotting hateful companies.
Organizations that wish to have California (and the other 20+ states) attending will have to accommodate California state law. And clearly, by your testimony, that won’t be onerous.
@Michael Reynolds:
I appreciate hyperbole, and Florida under the Ron DeFascist regime is doing some pretty gross things, but no. Just no.
A group of my gay friends have recently returned from Miami’s Ultra Music Festival. Before that, a group attended Miami Winter Party, a gay circuit festival. Before that, a bunch had to go to Ft. Laudergay to hop on and off an Atlantis gay cruise, and my queer Californian self spent Thanksgiving in Tampa at my brother’s place. We had a great time.
I don’t think Jews going to party in Nazi Germany in 1938 would give similar report lol
@Andy: I completely agree about the Governor’s travel to Montana. Newsome has a penchant for doing exactly the wrong thing, setting the wrong example. It will limit his political career, unless he switches to the Republican party.
As to your other point, that’s precisely why a travel ban is great. It hurts the hospitality industry, and the travel industry, and the local airports, and the hotels, and the conference venues – who then put pressure on their governments to step up their game.
The alternative is to do nothing. The alternative is to be a 1856 northern, non-slave state saying “yeah, slavery is bad down south, but I’m powerless.”
I think Andy’s analysis is correct. The cost to the host states is trivial. They wont change because of this, besides which the conferences usually take place in blue cities anyway. So this was always mostly about signaling. It was actually a pretty good signal to send hoping that it might change behaviors at the state level. Well, it didnt change state behaviors after all. Now it has significant costs for people in California while still not imposing any real costs for the bad states. (Think about it. If you were running for office as a candidate in a red state that passes these bad laws do you really think you would lose votes if someone pointed out that fewer CA state employees and academics would visit? I suspect this would actually be a bragging point.)
I am not seeing the benefit in maintaining a signal that hasn’t accomplished anything but has negative effects for CA. As to safety, sending a gay person to Key West is like sending a Jew to Germany in 1938? Have you been to Key West? Have the CA legislature pass laws/rules that say any person can decline to travel to any state or city if they think it will be unsafe and let the individual decide.
Steve
@Tony W: Except that trump States absolutely love to do things that hurt Blue Cities. They will happily poke their own eye with a stick if it would cost one Blue job.
@Tony W:
Will they? I see no evidence for this.
The ban is likely to end precisely because it negatively impacts the less privileged and/or those it’s supposed to help: LGBT and minoritity researchers, student-athletes and the like. Hence why a member of the LGBT community is taking the lead on reversal.
Our kind and well-meaning but sometimes-overzealous allies will vocally oppose the effort, but notably, not put their own privilege where there mouth is and personally boycott these 24+ some-odd states. I’m waiting for financially-comfortable white Californians like Newsom to guarantee they will stop traveling to Florida (and Montana etc) themselves. Till then, thanks for the performance, but meh.
@Tony W:
This analogy really doesn’t work, because gay Californians actually do need to travel to antigay states on California’s dole, like, for example, to go to Gainesville and collaborate with colleagues and queer students at the University of Florida on how to combat DeSantis. California absolutely should pay for this. It advances the cause.
Whereas, there was absolutely no good reason for a black freedman in New York c. 1858 to put his freedom and life at risk travel to the Deep South except maybe to help Harriet Tubman types under cover of night. And suffice to say, that’s a beast of another animal altogether, as there were places even Tubman would not and could not go.
We aren’t at the point of having to smuggle gays out of Austin, New Orleans, or Atlanta (yet). Frankly, given a choice between living in the vibrant and robust gayborhood of Midtown Atlanta, Ft. Lauderdale, Key West, or East Austin vs living in Temecula, Bakersville, or Fresno (McQarthy Country *barf*) most queer people would not pick California in that scenario.
@DK:
Miami and Miami Beach are not all of Florida. Fort Walton Beach, Sarasota, Naples and The Villages, are also Florida. And we aren’t talking about a specific city, the injunction is against the state. I think like a lot of people you equate early Nazi with eventual Nazi. In the 30’s the death camps were still in the future. And I’m sure there were places in Germany where delusional Jews with a very narrow worldview might have reported having a good time. Just as there were fools asserting that the new Taliban would be kinder to women.
@Michael Reynolds:
You said 1938, not I. The panhandle is not all of Florida either. And you don’t get to erase the existence of Miami and Miami Beach. Or Key West or Fort Lauderdale. Or the other gay-friendly gayborhoods across the state you know nothing about because you aren’t gay.
But don’t gay people stop you from digging in you heels. I just love hearing arrogant Boomer white men who are sure they are the best allies ever lecture LGBT people about how delusional and foolish we are because we won’t co-sign lazy, ham-fisted Nazi analogies.
Do go on. I’m sure you know much more about how to identify antigay threats than my black queer ass and the lesbian lawmaker leading the effort to overturn this ban.
(I think people like you should actually try listening to the people you purport to want to help. For once.)
@steve:
But don’t you know straight white men of a certain age know everything about Key West and Florida and gays than the gay people who live there and travel there?
It’s interesting how the arguments supporting this policy have devolved to the point of making comparisons to Nazi Germany and slavery. If anyone actually believes such comparisons are true in reality, then they ought to be doing a lot more than supporting a travel ban that does nothing.
Given my daughter – the trans one – was harassed by a TSA agent and made to miss her flight at IAH in Houston, we will not have family gatherings that bring her to Texas again until we see some substantive change. This is in spite of my other daughter living there. I feel bad about it, I like Houston. But I’m not putting my daughter through that.
I do not care to force state employees – some of whom I feel sure are trans – to go through that either. That’s not the same as a travel ban, of course. But man, the question of whether a state will be welcoming to me and my family or not is a primary issue these days for my travel plans.
@Andy: it’s the tragedy of the commons. We are all waiting for someone else to do what needs to be done.
@DK:
@Michael Reynolds:
I think it’s a case by case situation.
Being aware of current events, I evaluate whether I want to go somewhere or not.
FL is a hard no, even though my three brothers live there. TX falls in here, too.
TN, NC, GA…meh, The Southern Appalachians and The Great Smokeys and some of the best motorcycle roads in the country overcomes all the other BS for me.
I guess it’s transactional.
@Andy:
Germany didn’t compare to Nazi Germany, right up until it did.
@Tony W: It has cost San Fran millions as they cant hire contractors from half the states
I’ve got a ton of privilege that doesn’t extend to many other members of the LGBT+ community (middle class, middle aged, white, gender-conforming, cis male) that shields me from a lot of the more obvious BS, but I wouldn’t stay here in Texas if I didn’t have. I am my 81 year old mom’s sole caregiver. I can’t move her and I won’t abandon her to third parties.
There’s no way I would move or travel here or to Florida in 2023, and I’m utterly baffled that other LGBT+ folks are willing to.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
At least you have the personal integrity to admit it. It’s all omg Nazis and omg slavery and that’s a hard no for me dawg from our erstwhile allies…unless there’s a transaction we don’t want to give up lol
Would Florida still be a hard no if the best motorcycle roads were there instead of Appalachia? Meh.
California’s gay/black academics and student-athletes have transactions to make in Florida et al. They should not be hamstrung by other folks’ performative allyship.
@Gromitt Gunn:
You’re utterly baffled that other LGBT+ folks also have people/responsibilities/activities they “won’t abandon”?
I’m utterly baffled that someone with enough awareness and honesty to admit their privilege can’t square this circle. Are only your priorities valid?
@Jay L Gischer:
But the question here isn’t whether they should be “forced.” The question is whether those who want to should have freedom of choice — and the financial support others get.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
But now we know better. So if the signs are there, shouldn’t we start bombing Florida now lol
@DK:
WTF are you talking about?
@DK: Why would you go somewhere you’re not wanted, if there are other options? Just seems a little rude, with a side portion of hassle. Maybe I’m a little spiteful and brittle, but if you call me a groomer, I’m not spending money in your establishment.
But I don’t see the appeal of Florida at all. A fetid swamp with bigots, crocodiles and bigoted crocodiles.
@DK:
Employment is a pretty coercive arrangement.
I get it, you want to go to Florida, and not have people think you’re a bit of a shithead for having done so, so you’re pulling out a bunch of random arguments…
@Gustopher: Well for starters, the “other options” aren’t nearly as non-bigoted and progressive as they like to think they are. I’ve called the n-word and the f-word in Ahmaud Arbery Country Georgia where I grew up and I’ve been called the same right here in Wokeistan California too. So for many, it’s why ask why when it’s often six in one hand, a half dozen in the other.
I don’t see the appeal of Florida either, but I also don’t think everybody has to do things the way I do them. Not everybody has to think like me, advocate for change the way I do, skin cats the way I skin them, enjoy the things I enjoy, or prioritize what I prioritize.
We liberals are supposed to understand pluralism. I’m baffled when we don’t, and I admire queer people and black people who are over in hostile territory, staying in the fight, while I am decamped to urban California and considering abandoning ship for Berlin.
@Gustopher:
I get that some white men think they know everything, but no you don’t get it. Much to the chagrin of my best friend (straight antivaxxer, god help me) who lives in Miami, I have refused to visit him for over 5 years, only returning to Florida at the insistence of my parents to go to Thanksgiving last year at my brother’s house.
Just because unlike some liberals I’m an actual liberal (meaning, I do not believe in forcing my worldview onto other people or insisting that everyone has to do what I want them to do but I do believe in actually *listening* to the people I’m seeking to uplift and adjusting my allyship accordingly) does not mean I personally like Florida. If you yourself were an actual liberal rather than a phony one, I wouldn’t need to explain that to you.
And anyone who thinks I give a flying fuck what random strangers on the internet think of me, doesn’t know me at all. I enjoy bantering with you people, but the internet is not real life. I barely care what people I actually know think of my choices, I don’t give a shit what you think about anything I do. Don’t flatter yourself, homie lol
I get it: many men certain age and race on the left are fake allies who don’t actually care about the opinions of the people they pretend to want help. You’re only in it to Pat themselves on the back and nail themselves to the crosses of their liberal martyrdom.
So we know you’re going to ignore, dismiss, ridicule, and lie about the real life examples of academic researchers and student athletes who want to travel to places you don’t think they should go, because, of course you guys always know it all and know better.
But it doesn’t matter: I don’t need old white men who haven’t faced 1% of the discrimination and hate I have to tell me how oppose racism and homophobia. And neither do the other LGBT plus people who don’t agree with you, no matter how much you can’t stand that.
@DK: I want to say this as gently as I can: My next sentence, which you didn’t quote, was “that’s not the same thing as a travel ban”. You are agreeing at me.
@Gustopher:
Queer academic researchers at California state schools who want to travel to states with increasing anti-gay sentiment to conduct research with and collaborate with the LGBT+ community in said states — doing actual work unlike performative allies who do nothing but run their mouths on the internet — are not being coerced.
I understand why the existence of such people is inconvenient for you, so you’re pulling out a bunch of bullshit assumptions.
@DK:
I really don’t understand why you jumped immediately to that conclusion. It feels like you had to assume that I am utterly lacking empathy rather than granting me the grace of assuming that I unintentionally omitted a word like “voluntarily.”
You really don’t know anything about me other than a couple of sentences.
@Grommit Gunn: Okay, then, so you do understand why although you and I have no desire or need to travel to Florida, other queer people might. And that it is not necessarily right for you and I to stymie them or hold them hostage.
Cool.
@DK: you’re all over the place with your arguments, which is generally the sign of someone who isn’t saying their real argument.
@Gustopher: Oh I said my real argument. You just want to believe there’s an ulterior motive, because fake allies aren’t used to liberals who are actually liberal. Liberals whose allyship is largely based on self-aggrandizing ulterior motives or personal cost-benefit can’t possibly believe that someone might actually advocate for others on good faith alone.
I was opposed to lifting the ban until I learned how it was negatively affecting California employees, especially those from marginalized communities. The difference between me and some of y’all and is that rather than cling stubbornly to my previous position based on us vs. them liberal dogma, I can say “Oops, okay, I will defer to you instead.” Because that’s what liberals are supposed to do when the people we claim to help tell us that what we’re doing does not actually help them.
When the facts change, I change my opinion. But that requires putting your ego aside and listening, something that American men of a certain demographic have proven again and again to struggle with. It’s a side effect of privilege, I guess.
I stand by everything I’ve said, and I don’t need your approval.
@daryl and his brother darryl:
Comparing Florida to Nazi Germany makes you sound crazy.
@Gustopher:
DK and I almost always butt heads, but I think his arguments here are pretty straightforward once you look past the “men of a certain age” and other insults.
Rather, the incoherent arguments are the ones that assert Nazi and slavery comparisons in order to defend a policy that has objectively failed, is arguably counterproductive, and logically doesn’t do anything but hurt Californians.
@Gustopher: Additionally, just as in Tragedy of the Commons (and boycotting Chick fil-a for that matter), the actions of one (or even several) good actors has little to no practical effect compared to the actions of the multitude of bad ones. And in the Cali travel ban case, it would appear that some good actors are impacting some other good actors to the detriment of those actors. I have no particular sympathy for the sports teams–their travel on state funds is suspect to begin with in my thoroughly less than humble opinion, but the guy whose research has been impacted and other similar stakeholders have a complaint to make.
Still, Cali is grown and can figure this out for itself. Either way, the governor claiming that his personal travel is solely his business, though technically correct (maybe), is a bad look and easy to turn into a typical complaint made about “liberals” since liberalism started.
@Tony W:
Correct. They won’t. That’s the point.
Mostly the drive throughs are full of people who like Chik-fil-A. For the record, I think your Chik-Fil-A boycott analogy is absolutely spot on! And its providing just as much help for the little guy.
They won’t, and they aren’t. I don’t know what to tell you man.
This is the 2nd time you’ve asserted this. I really can’t find evidence that 20 other states have boycotted Alabama, et al.
Changing nothing is generally pretty effortless.