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California Democrats wished to ship a message once they handed a regulation 5 years in the past banning taxpayer-funded travel to states that enable companies to deny providers to homosexual and transgender folks.
California leaders took a stand, however they didn’t discourage Republican states from adopting these so-called religious freedom laws.
Since then, California has banned state-funded travel to 18 states, with a complete inhabitants of 117 million folks. That’s a little bit greater than a 3rd of the nation’s general inhabitants.
You can’t drive throughout the nation with out passing by way of a minimum of one state on the record.
The newest addition got here in late September, when Attorney General Rob Bonta introduced a ban on state-funded travel to Ohio over a brand new state regulation that lets docs cite their ethical or religious beliefs in denying care to a affected person.
“Ohio’s decision to condone attacks on the health of its nearly 400,000 LGBTQ+ residents was widely opposed by the state’s medical community. It’s plain that this law only serves to discriminate,” stated Assemblyman Evan Low, D-Campbell, who wrote California’s travel ban regulation. “We will never put Californians at risk of falling victim to the same toxic standard by supporting the use of taxpayer dollars for travel in places where anti-LGBTQ discrimination is the law of the land.”
California handed its travel restrictions in 2016 in response to Indiana’s “Religious Freedom Restoration Act,” which made it simpler for folks to demand exemptions from anti-discrimination laws by permitting lawsuits that problem them on the premise of religious perception.
Businesses teams condemned the Indiana regulation, and then-Gov. Mike Pence later signed an modification that was meant to defend homosexual and transgender folks from discrimination. Today, California doesn’t ban state-funded travel to Indiana.
While the California travel ban regulation was meant to put stress on conservative-leaning states not to cross anti-LGBT laws, in follow a number of of these states have gone forward with such laws and California’s banned state record has grown significantly.
One state, North Carolina, was added to the record after lawmakers in that state handed a invoice prohibiting transgender folks from utilizing the lavatory of their gender id. Though North Carolina has since repealed that regulation, it stays within the banned record.
Other states on the banned travel record embrace Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia.
All of the states on the travel ban record voted for former President Donald Trump within the 2020 election.
Republicans have full management of state authorities in nearly all of them, excluding Kentucky and North Carolina, which have Democratic governors.
California nonetheless permits state-funded travel to the next states which voted for Trump: Alaska, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Utah and Wyoming.
The California regulation has exemptions for severe authorities enterprise, reminiscent of regulation enforcement, tax assortment, and people touring for coaching occasions required for grants from the ban.
It is unclear how a lot of an influence the travel ban can have on school sports activities.
The University of California stated in an announcement that it “remains committed to promoting principles of equity and inclusion, and has been implementing AB 1887 in good faith by prohibiting the use of state funds to support travel to banned states.” Its faculties proceed to travel to states on the banned record once they use cash raised from donors.
As for the California State University system, the chancellor’s workplace stated in an announcement that campuses have been knowledgeable of the addition of Ohio to the record of states banned below AB 1887.
“Athletic teams may still travel to an affected state in order to participate in an athletic competition as long as the team is in compliance with California state law and ensures that no state general fund dollars or tuition and fee revenue are used,” the CSU stated in an announcement. “Some groups might select to travel to a banned state to adjust to a contractual obligation reached earlier than the regulation went into impact, or just below the spirit of competitors and the expertise gained by competing towards the most effective athletes within the nation.
This story was initially revealed October 4, 2021 1:46 PM.
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Andrew Sheeler covers California’s distinctive political local weather for the Sacramento Bee. He has coated crime and politics from Interior Alaska to North Dakota’s oil patch to the rugged coast of southern Oregon. He attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
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