State fires back at California ban
Lawmakers mock travel restrictions to Texas in response to adoption law
AUSTIN — A day after California banned statefunded travel to Texas, citing a new Lone Star adoption law they say is discriminatory, Texas officials on Friday mocked the decision as a cheap political stunt.
There were suggestions that Texas lawmakers might try to find a way to retaliate in their upcoming special session starting July 18.
“California might be able to stop their state employees, but they can’t stop all the businesses that are fleeing over-taxation and -regulation, and relocating to Texas,” said Gov. Greg Abbott’s press secretary, John Wittman.
Privately, Abbott aides and legislative leaders dissed the California move as hollow, saying that if the Golden State is so concerned about discrimination and human rights outside its borders, Gov. Jerry Brown should not have recently visited China. In China, they said, gay marriage is illegal, workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is com-
mon, same-sex rape is not against the law, and the civil rights of LGBTQ people are not protected.
Others noted that a group of California politicians was in Dallas on Friday for the annual gathering of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, despite the ban.
“It’s funny how the very state that is so adamantly against keeping terrorists out of our country — they oppose the president’s travel ban — now wants to keep Californians out of Texas,” said Marc Rylander, communications director for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. “I guess that’s California logic.”
Others seemed ready to fire back at California over the snub. “I hope @ GregAbbott_TX will let us reciprocate during the special session,” tweeted state Rep. Dustin Burrows, RLubbock.
‘Another reason to leave’
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was in line throwing shade at California, as well. “If California state employees can’t come to Texas, they will be among the few Californians who remain at home,” he said. “Thousands of folks fled California’s high taxes and liberal attitudes to come to Texas in 2015. Overall, Texas gained over half million new residents from other states. In California, almost 700,000 people moved out.”
Alejandro Garcia, his spokesman, added: “Lt. Gov. Patrick finds it ironic that Gov. Moonbeam Brown is trying to impose political correctness on Texas. Thousands of conservative Californians and business owners have already moved to Texas because of high taxes and over-regulation. Now they have another reason to leave.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown and other officials had no immediate response.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra touched off the controversy Thursday by adding Texas and three other states to a list of places where Californiafunded or sponsored travel is prohibited, under a state law that restricts the expenditure of state funds to places that “authorize discrimination” against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
It also covers places that repeal state or local protections for LGBTQ residents or create exemptions to laws to permit discrimination against same-sex couples or families.
The target of the Texas listing is a new law that allows child welfare providers to deny adoptions to parents based on “sincerely held religious beliefs.” California officials said that is discriminatory.
The author of that law, state Rep. Wayne Frank, RWichita Falls, accused California of playing “political games” with legislation that was designed to protect religious liberties as part of sweeping reforms to improve the foster-care system.
“While California prides itself on being ‘open-minded,’ it is only open-minded if you kneel at the altar of a certain political agenda,” Frank said. “It seems that California has become like many college campuses across the country. They love a diversity of people but not a diversity of opinion.”
Hotly debated by lawmakers before it passed, and supported by the conservative Republicans who control both legislative chambers in Texas, the bill was supported by religious organizations that said they would have to stop assisting with foster-care placements if they were forced to violate their religious beliefs.
LGBTQ groups in Texas have blasted the adoption measure as a way to allow discrimination.
Three other states added
Just as Texas officials were unhappy with California on Friday, so were officials in the other three states that were added to the no-travel list: Alabama, Kentucky and South Dakota. Woody Maglinger, a spokesman for Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, fired back much as Texas officials did: “The very same West Coast liberals who rail against the president’s executive order that protects our nation from foreign terrorists have now contrived their own travel ban aimed at punishing states who don’t fall in lockstep with their far-left political ideology.”
Based on its law, California now bans state-funded travel to eight states in all. The others are Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Becerra’s deputy communications director Chris Moyer responded to Texas’ shots with a return volley on California economy: It is now the sixth-largest in the world, surpassing France, and has outpaced the rest of the country on job growth — including Texas.
Effect on sports teams
Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California, the nation’s largest LGBT civil rights organization that shepherded passage of the California law, said the ban was not intended to punish Texas and other states but to make sure other states understand there is a cost to targeting people with discriminatory laws or practices.
“States like Texas are moving against the tide of public opinion” that is increasingly against discrimination of the LGBTQ community, he said, in what is really an American ideal of “acceptance, respect and inclusion.” He said the Texas adoption law is among several antiLGBTQ measures pushed in Texas and other states that discriminate under the guise of religious freedom.
As the feud over California’s action escalated Friday, officials in both states moved quickly to assuage concerns that the travel ban might cancel upcoming sports game, including San Jose State’s scheduled Sept. 9 game against the University of Texas Longhorns in Austin. California officials said games that were scheduled and contracts signed before Jan. 1, are exempt from the ban.
Those also include Cal at TCU in 2021. The Cal-TCU game was set in 2014, as well as a home-and-home basketball series between Texas A&M and Southern California and a football home-and-home agreement between Texas and the Trojans, both slated for 2017-18. USC is a private institution.
But, they conceded, future college events hosted in Texas that involve California public universities could be in jeopardy.
At the same time, ramifications are murkier for national events in Texas in which participants are determined in-season.
Two yearly bowl games with Pac-12 ties — the Valero Alamo Bowl and Hyundai Sun Bowl — are played in San Antonio and El Paso, and the Cotton Bowl will host a national semifinal at
AT&T Stadium in 2018.
While most California public schools have stated they will not schedule future games in the restricted states some have skirted the ban by funding travel on their own.
UCLA, for example, sent its basketball team to Tennessee to play in the Sweet 16 this past spring with non-public funds.
Advocates sound off
Several advocacy groups in Texas sided with the Golden State position.
In statements, they said that the 7,000-member Professional Convention Management Association has canceled a convention in Houston because of its moves to pass anti-transgender laws and that the NFL and CEOs of several top corporations including Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Dell have warned Texas against passing the discriminatory laws.
“We’re watching a slowmotion economic train wreck here, and the special session could turn that into a full-on disaster,” said Kathy Miller, president of the Texas Freedom Network, an advocacy group that opposes the religious right.
“This goes beyond the very real moral problem with discriminating against people simply because of who they are or whom they love. What should be increasingly clear even to the governor and lieutenant governor is that their obsession with writing discrimination into law risks turning Texas into a state that people and companies simply don’t want to visit or do business in.”