U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear Ken Paxton's challenge to California law banning state-funded travel to Texas

California banned state-funded travel to Texas because of a 2017 
religious-refusal law for adoptions in the state, which critics called 
discriminatory against LGBTQ families.

https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/26/texas-california-travel-ban-
lawsuit/

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected an attempt by Texas Attorney 
General Ken Paxton to challenge a California ban on state-funded travel to 
states with discriminatory laws — a list Texas landed on in 2017 after the 
Legislature approved a religious-refusal law for adoptions in the state.

The move comes as the Texas Legislature grapples with a slate of anti-
LGBTQ bills that business leaders warn could be harmful to Texans and a 
threat to the state’s economy, which is still reeling from the recession 
that accompanied the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, the court, charged with hearing disputes between states, 
declined to hear Paxton’s challenge, filed early last year. The ban 
prevents California agencies, public universities and boards from funding 
work-related trips to Texas.

There was no reason given for the denial of Paxton’s request, but Justices 
Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Both were appointed by then 
President George H.W. Bush, the first Houston Republican elected to 
Congress. Paxton couldn't be immediately reached for comment late Monday.

In June 2017, shortly after the Texas Legislature moved to allow foster 
care agencies to use religious reasons to deny same-sex couples the right 
to foster children, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra blasted the 
law that he said "allows foster care agencies to discriminate against 
children in foster care and potentially disqualify LGBT families from the 
state’s foster and adoption system."

The law was authored by state Rep. James Frank, a Wichita Falls Republican 
who now chairs the House Human Services Committee, and allows faith-based 
organizations to deny services for certain contraceptives and refuse to 
contract with organizations that don’t share their religious beliefs. It 
requires providers to refer parents or children to a different agency if 
they refuse to provide services themselves.

Paxton, who has made religious liberty a top priority of his office, at 
the time criticized the California statute as an unconstitutional and 
misguided attempt to police other states.

“California is attempting to punish Texans for respecting the right of 
conscience for foster care and adoption providers,” he said.

But if the move by the Golden State was meant to curb Texas’ appetite for 
anti-LGBTQ legislation, it has not had the intended effect.

Last fall, under recommendations from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, a state 
board that oversees behavioral health workers stripped three categories 
from the code of conduct establishing when a social worker may refuse 
service to someone: On the basis of disability, sexual orientation or 
gender identity.

Abbott said at the time that those protections went beyond state law, but 
the move set off such a firestorm of criticism that the board reinstated 
the protections two weeks later.

Then last week, members of the business group Texas Competes — composed of 
more than 1,450 Texas employers, business and tourism groups and backed by 
big tech companies like Houston-based Hewlett Packard — listed 26 
proposals winding through the Texas Legislature that they say will 
infringe on LGBTQ Texans’ rights, “tarnish Texas’s welcoming brand” and 
scare away tourism and business.

They include restrictions on access to gender confirmation health care for 
transgender children, which is awaiting a debate in the Texas Senate. A 
bill already passed by that chamber would prevent public school students 
from participating in sports teams unless their sex assigned at birth 
aligns with the team’s designation.

While that bill would only affect students in K-12 schools, two similar 
bills in the House would include colleges and universities in that 
mandate. Last week, the chair of the House committee assigned the Senate’s 
sports bill told the Houston Chronicle that the lower chamber’s companion 
legislation likely doesn’t have enough support to leave committee.

The Texas Senate passed the bill on transgender athletes shortly after the 
NCAA announced that they would only hold national championships in states 
where transgender student-athletes are allowed to participate.

If Texas lands on that list as well, the state could lose out on as much 
as $1 billion dollars of economic impact if the NCAA canceled its events 
currently slated to take place in Texas — such as the 2024 College 
Football Playoff National Championship game set for Houston and the 2023 
Women’s Final Four in Dallas, said Lisa Hermes, CEO of the Chamber of 
Commerce in McKinney, north of Dallas.

Among the states California has targeted with its travel ban is North 
Carolina, after the state enacted a law requiring state agencies to 
maintain separate-sex bathrooms and changing facilities.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has championed similar legislation in the past, 
even making the so-called “bathroom bill” a legislative priority in 2017, 
but it did not pass.



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