The news that the state of California government has a distaste for the federal government under the current President is no deep dark secret. The CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra has sued the feds over 60 times. That is just part of the story as the other 49 states are also targets of California and its current government led by Gavin Newsom and two legislative chambers with veto-proof majorities.
In a law put in place on January 1, 2017 (Assembly Bill 1887) and updated June 5, 2018, California restricts any employee from traveling to a state that has enacted a law discriminating based on sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. The law applies to all government employees including the Cal State University system.
The “likeliest suspect” states (which no self-respecting Californian would travel to) are Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Kansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Iowa and, of course, Texas. There have been some grumblings as the state employees are upset they cannot attend the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, TX. That is the favorite place to meet for the teachers’ union.
This law does allow for exceptions such as enforcement of California laws for the purpose of auditing and revenue collection or litigation and other rationale. When asked why the revenue exception, Fiona Ma, California State Treasurer, said “When given a choice to protecting our principles or collecting money to pay for our salaries and pensions we have to pick priorities and money comes first.”
The leaders of the state are looking at adding other rationale that prohibit government employees from traveling to other states. Some of the reasons being considered:
1. Fur Trapping – This was recently outlawed by the California Legislature and the states that continue to allow trapping are under consideration. Minnesota is a particularly targeted state. The leader of the Assembly stated “We have to show those Minnesotans that they cannot continue mistreating these animals. They talk about Minnesota nice, but these people are barbaric and we cannot send our employees to their state.”
2. Fracking – “We object to this process and it is particularly annoying because it is lowering the price of natural gas and oil making our costs for power way out of whack, harming our windmills,” said Governor Newsom. Pennsylvania, the rest of the Mid-West, Alaska, Montana and Wyoming are all facing travel bans.
3. Caged Chickens – This a considered an inhumane way of raising chickens by the current government and many states particularly in the South are facing bans. A state Assembly leader was overheard saying “No one wants to go to Arkansas anyway particularly since the Clintons moved out so that is no great loss.”
When we reviewed all the states that are currently under a travel ban or being considered from California, we found there are 48. After analysis we identified Hawaii as the lone state not to be subjected to punitive treatment from the Lords of California. We asked the Attorney General’s office how Hawaii had escaped. A spokesperson for the AG said “What are you nuts? If we ban travel to Hawaii, where are we going to hold all our meetings on those boondoggles? We need somewhere to hold all those meetings and who doesn’t want to go to Hawaii. Union leaders told us they supported all this. They need their free vacations and if we banned Hawaii they would strike.”
With all these states banned, one must wonder if the other states might retaliate. After all, they have conventions and junkets themselves so why would they have them in California?
The Governor’s office told us “We expect there will be a miniscule level of cancellations. We have the beaches, the mountains and the deserts. We have the best environment in the world. Why would anyone stop traveling to California? And we now offer special health and liability insurance for anyone who trips over a homeless person or contracts typhus. You are fully covered.”
There is talk that the other 49 states are thinking about banding together to fight these new California rules and inflict pain for taking these actions. Xavier Becerra countered them by saying “Bring it on. We are battle ready. We have been taking on Trump for close to three years. Do you really thing Rhode Island is going to scare us? We will take them all on. We are California and we simply know better.”
This is satire if you haven’t figured that out by now. The state has banned travel to 11 states. Everything else is satire.