California Bans State Travel to 5 More States

California has added five more states to its state-funded travel ban list, for a total of 17 since the state started the practice in 2017. Arkansas, Florida, Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia are now on the list thanks to what California Attorney General Rob Bonta referred to Monday as their "dangerous" laws discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, CNN reports. Assembly Bill 1887 bars state entities from requiring employees to travel to states on the list, and bars California from approving state-funded or state-sponsored travel to those places, though exemptions do exist for things like travel that is necessary to maintain grant funding or licensure, or to protect public health.

The ban also does not apply to personal travel. In the past, California has been criticized for the list, with Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt banning all non-essential state travel to California in retaliation for being placed on the list and Texas last year asking the Supreme Court to block AB 1887. In his statement Monday, Bonta said the states that have been added have recently established laws that "directly work to ban transgender youth from playing sports, block access to life-saving care, or otherwise limit the rights of members of the LGBTQ+ community." Per Politico, the other states on the list are Alabama, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. (More California stories.)