Newsom’s Montana trip: A yay or a nay?

Who wouldn't want to take a family vacation in the great state of Montana?

You've got your Glacier National Park — motto, “The crown of the Continent.” You've got your gateway to perhaps the most famous national Park, Yellowstone, even if most of the park boundaries themselves are in neighboring Wyoming. You've got trout fishing, hiking, seven different Native American reservations, snow-capped mountains, riverrunning ... what's not to like for mom, dad and the kids?

That's just what California Gov. Gavin Newsom, his wife Jennifer Siebel and their four kids figured this summer. But because Montana is on a list of 22 states banned by Sacramento for state-funded travel because laws that California says are discriminatory based on sexual orientation or gender, the governor is catching some heat for his trip. Should he be? That's our Question of the Week for our readers.

The family didn't technically use state funds itself to go on the vacation — they're paying their own way. But though authorities won't comment, citing “security concerns,” presumably a protective detail made up of state employees accompanied them.

Because that's spending state money in Montana, is the governor being hypocritical?

The Newsoms have deep ties to the state. The parents of first partner Siebel live there — and, hey, Newsom and Siebel named their oldest daughter Montana! Does that take them off the hook?

The California Department of Justice, not the governor, says which states are on the no-spend list. Does that make a difference?

Politico reports Montana hit the list for the first time last year “after enacting a pair of laws that barred transgender students from joining school teams matching their gender identities and allowed businesses to seek exemptions from some laws under the auspices of religious liberty, which LGBTQ advocates said could open the door to discrimination.” Are those good reasons to forbid California state spending there? Should the governor have maybe stayed home, or was he entirely within his rights to visit the in-laws?

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