“California state university researchers are banned from using funds to travel to Texas to study Harvey’s aftermath.” — Joshua McCabe on Twitter. The guidelines from California Attorney General Xavier Becerra do cite the legislature’s allowance of a number of narrow exceptions including travel that is “required…for the protection of public health, welfare, or safety, as determined by the affected agency.” The cited project, however, might not make it past that tough standard, given that it is possible in principle to wait and study flood aftermaths in some other place that (unlike Texas) is not under legislated California sanctions.
All of which should remind us that boycotts of states by other states 1) operate like internal trade barriers; 2) do not do much for national unity. See earlier posts from April 2015 (would Constitution provide any remedy if states closed state university systems to residents of “bad” states?); April 2016 (logic of lifting sanctions against Cuba extends to sanctions against Texas and North Carolina).
3 Comments
So it’s unconstitutional for the POTUS to put travel/immigration restrictions on non citizens but it’s ok for a State to essentially do the same and prevent its employed citizens from traveling to another State because the feelz? Um, ok, knew there was a reason I did not become a lawyer
@Weagle.
The first lesson of law school is that the Constitution exists to impose the preferences of the law faculty at Yale.
The second lesson of law school is that, if you disagree with the law faculty of Yale, the Constitution exists to impose your own preferences.
The third lesson of law school is to learn the tools of sophistry necessary to sound principled.
Something tells me Texans are okay with Californians staying in California.