California takes steps to lure companies from red states – SFGATE
The proposed state budget, which Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign Thursday, incentivizes companies in Republican-controlled states to relocate jobs to California by giving them priority when it comes to receiving grant money.
Starting next year, the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development — better known as GO-Biz — will consider the political leanings of a company’s home state when deciding which businesses to award grants to. Put simply, it creates priority for businesses that are relocating jobs away from red states. That means companies in places like Alabama theoretically stand a better chance of receiving grant money from GO-Biz than companies in places like New York, even if both are attempting to create jobs in California.
When considering whether a state meets the new bar for priority, the new budget calls for GO-Biz to consider whether that state’s legislature has passed laws that are discriminatory. Specifically, it encourages GO-Biz to examine whether those states have passed laws that eliminate protections for gay and transgender people, as well as laws that restrict access to abortion.
According to the budget’s language, GO-Biz needs to consider a potential grantee’s “willingness to relocate jobs into California” from states that have enacted any law that “voids or repeals, or has the effect of voiding or repealing” existing state protections for gay and transgender people; “authorizes or requires discrimination against” gay or transgender people; or “creates an exemption to antidiscrimination laws in order to permit discrimination” against gay or transgender people. GO-Biz also needs to consider whether that state has passed a law that “denies or interferes with, or has the effect of denying or interfering with, a woman’s right to choose to bear a child or to choose and obtain an abortion.”
That means if a company operates in a state with such laws and is seeking to relocate jobs in that state to California, that company stands a better chance of receiving grant money than do companies in other states that don’t have such laws on the books.
Newsom has been calling on businesses in red states to relocate to California for months, and the new budget item shows that he’s taking more concrete steps to achieve that goal.
In a May speech about the budget, Newsom teased the idea of creating such incentives after he seemed to allude to two Texas laws — one that effectively banned abortion in that state, even before the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last week; and another that sought to treat gender-confirming care for kids as child abuse. Earlier this year, the governor also called on Disney to create more jobs in California, as opposed to Florida, because of that state’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits most classroom instruction about sexual orientation or gender identity in the state’s public schools.
“Disney, the door is open to bring those jobs back to California — the state that actually represents the values of your workers,” Newsom said on Twitter, shortly after that bill was announced.
California’s top officials continued their antagonistic approach to red states Thursday when Attorney General Rob Bonta announced that California would no longer pay for state-funded travel to Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana and Utah because of anti-trans legislation recently enacted in those states.
“Make no mistake: There is a coordinated, ongoing attack on transgender rights happening right now all across the country,” Bonta said in a news release. “Blanket legislation targeting transgender children is a ‘solution’ in search of a problem. It is detached from reality and directly undermines the well-being of our LGBTQ+ community.”
Before Thursday’s announcement, California had already restricted state-funded travel to 18 states for passing what officials have called “discriminatory laws.” The total number of states on California’s ban list is now 22.