After nearly seven years, San Francisco’s ban on city-funded trips to conservative states has been lifted. Reason? The town’s board of supervisors voted to scrap the policy after a report found it was potentially costing the town money and contracts and wasn’t working as intended.
San Francisco’s policy, called Chapter 12X, was passed in 2016 and was intended to pressure states not to pass laws that San Francisco lawmakers deemed anti-LGBTQ. Chapter 12X initially banned city-sponsored contracts and travel in four states, but since then, the list of banned states has grown to include states with other policies they found objectionable regarding abortion and restrictive voting laws. Missouri and Utah were the latest to be added to the city’s list, which as of last September included 30 states, or more than half of the US.
“I’m not sure to what extent people ever thought this would have much impact on the politics of other states, but it was kind of a statement,” said Alan Auerbach, director of Robert D. Burch. Center for Tax Policy and Public Finance at the University of California, Berkeley.
Other travel bans
San Francisco is not alone in enacting policy-based travel bans. California and more than a dozen other states passed their North Carolina travel bans in response to a so-called bathroom bill in 2016 that barred local governments from expanding anti-discrimination policies beyond state law. Businesses including Adidas, the NBA and PayPal also pulled out, and the legislation cost North Carolina about $3.76 billion before then-Gov. Roy Cooper, a Republican, repealed it.
Success in overturning North Carolina’s law may have encouraged state and local officials to pursue a similar strategy on other issues, but not all subsequent pressure campaigns came with the full force of business interests, and the tactic is proved less effective over time.
“When states lose a convention, you know, lose a political convention or a Super Bowl, or you know, something like that, I think that can have a big impact,” Auerbach said. “But when the city of San Francisco says we’re not going to pay for our people to go to a conference in a certain state, I just don’t think that’s going to have a big enough impact and so it’s mostly affecting the government . and the city that is adopting the policy.”
California’s policy, which grew to include a ban on state-sponsored travel to 23 states, has affected academics and student-athletes at state schools who cannot travel to conferences or competitions in states on the list. prohibited using state funds. It also upset conservative elected officials. Texas challenged California’s ban in a case that the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately denied a request to hear, and in 2020, Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt responded to California’s ban with an executive order banning state-funded travel to Golden State.
San Francisco’s ban is not effective
San Francisco Board President Aaron Peskin called Chapter 12X a “well-intentioned effort at value-based outsourcing” in a statement to CBS News, but said it “ultimately did not bring about the social change it sought to achieve.” did”. The fact that the city’s list of banned states grew instead of shrinking spoke to its ineffectiveness.
San Francisco’s Office of the Budget and Legislative Analyst found in its report on Chapter 12X and California’s state travel ban that full and open competition for contracts could yield savings of up to 20%. The report estimated that the policy resulted in a reduced number of bids and higher costs for the city.
The report found that there were also many holes when it came to implementation. Between July 2021 and July 2022, 35 city departments had approved 538 waivers worth more than $791 million for contracts and purchase orders for companies in the banned states.
Political pressure campaigns by businesses and state and local governments today, such as the battle between Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Disney or the red-and-blue messaging bills intended to make a statement about a state’s prevailing politics, are informed by yesterday’s travel bans. . What some might dismiss as virtue signaling can help elected officials score political points, but it can also cost governments money, as San Francisco and DeSantis learned.
However, could the face of San Francisco signal the beginning of the end of an era? California Senate Leader Toni Atkins, a Democrat, told The Associated Press that she thought the polarization was not working, saying, “We need to adjust our strategy.” In March, she introduced a bill that would replace the state’s travel with a donation-funded advertising campaign for acceptance and inclusion of the LGBTQ community. Her name? The BRIDGE project.
