The Supreme Court on Monday refused to take up a case from the state of Texas seeking to overturn a California law banning state employee travel to the Texas in light of policies it deemed discriminatory against LGBTQ people.
California’s 2017 law bans state-funded business travel to 12 different states. It’s one of several left-leaning states that began to look for ways to stem the flow of state funds to states with with such policies in the wake of North Carolina’s “bathroom law” dictating which restrooms transgender individuals could use.
Texas was added to California’s travel ban after the state passed a law allowing adoption and foster care agencies to not place children with gay couples based on religious grounds.
In its suit, Texas slammed California’s “push to establish what it sees as a ‘legacy of “forward thinking,”‘” arguing its adoption law “protects the religious freedom of faith-based child welfare providers within its borders.”
“It is not forward thinking to revive the economic Balkanization that our Constitution is designed to stamp out,” the suit says.
Connecticut, Minnesota, New York, Vermont and Washington have all adopted similar state-level bans for nonessential work travel of state employees.
“Where states legislate discrimination, California unambiguously speaks out,” then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra said last year when the state added Idaho to its travel ban list.
The court offered no explanation for its decision not to review the case.