California’s ‘travel ban’ expands to 8 states in US

LOS ANGELES: California faced heavy backfire from Texas and Kentucky authorities Friday since the Golden State earlier restricted publicly funded travel to these and other states which have laws viewed as discriminatory against gay and transgender people, China's Xinhua news agency reported.

California's Legislature last year passed bill AB 1887, pledging “California must take action to avoid supporting or financing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.”

The bill prohibits any state agencies or the legislature from requiring any of its employees, officers, or members to travel to, or approving a request for statefunded or state-sponsored travel to such a state. The Attorney General of the state has the responsibility to issue the list of states that are subject to the ban.

At a press conference Thursday afternoon, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced that the new additions to the travel ban list were Texas, Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota.

“We will not spend taxpayer dollars in states that discriminate ,” Becerra said.

However, his decision Friday drew a verbal fight with states on the travel ban, which also included Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee who were put on the list last year.

John Wittman, Texas Governor Greg Abbott's press secretary, was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that this measure could not help California stop all the businesses that relocating to Texas over taxes and regulations. — Bernama