California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill Wednesday that officially ends the state’s ban on official travel to conservative states that had enacted laws that Democrats claim are anti-LGBTQ. The ban had been a total failure.
The Sacramento Bee reported:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday signed Senate Bill 447 into law, ending the seven-year-old travel ban that prohibited state money from being used to pay for travel to states with anti-LGBTQ laws.
The ban caused difficulties for many state agencies, researchers, student athletes and others who rely on state money. Even supporters of the ban acknowledged that the law was not having the deterrent effect it was intended to — with more than 500 anti-LGBTQ bills [sic] introduced in state legislatures across the country so far this year.
SB 447 replaces the ban with a state-funded, non-partisan advertising campaign in anti-LGBTQ states, which will spread a message of inclusivity, according to its supporters.
The bans covered one-third of the United States at one point. San Francisco also dropped its own boycotts of conservative states because they were ineffective and stood to cost the city millions in additional costs.
Newsom had repeatedly flouted the bans himself, traveling to “red” states for both personal and political reasons.
Most of the so-called “anti-LGBTQ” legislation covered issues such as protecting women’s sports from transgender competitors who were biologically male; restricting transgender drugs and surgery for minors; and reinforcing the use of traditional male and female bathrooms, rather than allowing transgender people to choose either option.
The repeal bill, SB 447, says California may pay for ads targeting states that pass anti-LGBTQ “discrimination” laws.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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