Gov. Newsom is visiting family in Montana. A California travel ban to the state doesn’t apply, his team says – KCRA Sacramento

Gov. Gavin Newsom is facing some criticism after visiting family as part of a vacation this week in Montana, a state that is on a list of prohibited places for official travel by California state workers because of discriminatory LGBTQ policies. But the state travel ban doesn’t apply in this case, his team says.

The governor’s office released a statement on July 1 that said “Governor Gavin Newsom has left the state,” which raised questions about his whereabouts.

The governor has been visiting family in Montana and will return over the weekend, KCRA 3 confirmed on Tuesday.

Under California’s constitution, the lieutenant governor becomes acting governor when the governor leaves the state.

Montana is one of 20 states on a list of places where “state-funded or state-sponsored travel” is prohibited, with some exceptions, due to discriminatory policies against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

“AB 1887 prohibits a state agency, department, board, or commission from requiring any state employees, officers, or members to travel” to states on the list, according to the California attorney general’s office.

Asked whether that state travel ban applies in this case and whether any state funds were used to pay for the trip for Newsom or any staffers or security, a spokesperson for the governor told KCRA 3 that the policy was not applicable.

“It’s a personal trip,” Erin Mellon said. “The ban is on state-funded travel which this is not.”

She added that the state’s travel ban applies to “expending state funds” and that Newsom’s travel is not being paid for by the state.

She would not go into detail about travel expenses for security.

“We don’t comment on his detail due to security concerns,” she said.

Anthony York, a senior adviser to Newsom, tweeted a dismissive response to a Cal Matters reporter who first looked into the governor’s travel. York wrote that connecting Newsom’s vacation to the issue of the state’s travel ban “is an attempt at gotcha journalism that is neither gotcha nor journalism.”

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According to an FAQ about AB 1887 prepared by the University of California Office of the President, the “statute does not define the term ‘state-funded.’”

The university system interprets the restrictions “on the use of state funds to apply to direct expenditures for travel-related costs (e.g., hotel and transportation) but not to the salaries or time spent by employees who travel to one of the identified states.”

Some of Newsom’s Republican critics have pounced on early reports about his travel to Montana.

Jessica Millan Patterson, the California GOP chairwoman, tweeted that this was an example of “do as I say, not as I do.”

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