(In MPSIMS because I guess this counts as breaking news, sort of.)
I just saw an article that Los Angeles County has banned all travel on official County business to Texas and Florida, to essentially boycott the homophobic and transphobic laws and policies going on down there.
I am wondering: What “official County business” does Los Angeles County have in Texas and Florida? And if there is such business that requires travel to there, how do you just pull the plug on that?
My guess would be conferences and meetings.
So you’re guessing some kind of official business meetings that are somehow “optional” for County officials to attend?
Sure. For example, the International Association of Chiefs of Police will hold its annual conference in Dallas in October. The chief of the LAPD might have been thinking about attending.
Okay. I can see cases like that. Are there any significant number of such conferences and meetings that County officials might optionally attend, and a significant number of them in Texas and Florida, and a significant number of officials that might optionally attend them? In other words, in this policy going to make any real difference?
I have no idea (though Miami and Orlando probably host quite a few conventions). But it’s something that Los Angeles County has authority over.
This article on the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette says,
Travel to conferences or out-of-state training are examples of trips that can be blocked.
Okay, that article also clarifies:
(emphasis added)
So if there’s some training situation, the state (or County) would have to evaluate just how important it is?
As an example, Texas A&M has a 52-acre training facility known as “Disaster City” where first responders from around the world train in how to safely and effectively search the rubble of collapsed buildings. I would assume such training is pretty vital for first responders in LA, although I don’t know whether equivalent training is available elsewhere.
I’d venture that essential travel is for things signed onto by the county before the ban was put in place, and, of course, picking up prisoners to be extradited to California.
A lot of these conferences rotate cities every year so if the person deciding where the 2026 conference is going to be held and Orlando and Cleveland are both options but putting it in Orlando would mean a bunch of CA people can’t come or need to fill out a bunch of paperwork, it’s easier just to avoid this whole mess and go with Cleveland.
Multiplied against the hundreds of conferences that all independently make the same calculus and the impact can be significant.
I’m sure it varies wildly, but in my personal experience professional development travel often goes like this.
In a lot of circumstances, saying “you can’t go to FL or TX” won’t mean the department can’t get the training it wants. They’ll just go somewhere else.
These conventions and conferences, which are businesses that want to make money, pick their locations to entice visitors. If you’re told that you can pick a training for your department and you’re choosing between Miami and Dubuque, the Iowa conference better have something pretty damn special to make up for the fact that you have to tell your employees they don’t get to go to Miami.
That’s the same reason they rotate locations. They don’t want to lose money because visitors have gotten bored going to the same place three years in a row.
No of course not. That’s why they do it. It won’t actually make a practical difference but it also won’t inconvenience the government of CA at all. Its just a symbolic gesture. But gestures do matter.