A.G. Gancarski
Attorney General Ashley Moody addressed a travel ban passed this week by Los Angeles County disallowing taxpayer-funded official travel to Florida and Texas over LGBTQ policies.
During a Friday interview on the Fox Business Network’s “Varney and Company,” Moody discussed the decision by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to ban such travel in the light of Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law and legislation in Texas. She dismissed the move as “nothing new” and evidence of leaders “freaking out” over Florida’s appeal to their relocating residents.
“California is freaking out because all of their folks want to move to states like Texas and Florida because they are trying to cram down their radical policies that are destroying the strength of that state,” Moody told interviewer Stuart Varney.
“They don’t want people coming here because they think they’ll fall in love with Florida and move to the ‘Free State of Florida’ and add to the massive numbers that are already leaving,” the Attorney General added.
As KTLA reported, the travel ban only applies to trips funded with taxpayer money, meaning that, at least in theory, Commissioners could travel on their own dime. The bill also contemplates emergency travel to Texas or Florida as a permissible spend, effectuating the ban “unless the Chief Executive Officer determines that the failure to authorize such travel would seriously harm the county’s interests.”
“We’re not going to spend our money going to your states and it sends a message that we won’t support this egregious behavior,” said Sheila Kuehl, the bill sponsor.
Leaders in other states are mobilizing against the Florida legislation, which limits classroom instruction on topics including “instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity.” Such instruction is banned for students in kindergarten through third grade. Also prohibited: instruction for all students “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.”
New York City rolled out a billboard campaign targeting the bill as “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, a phrase used by critics of the bill and adopted by some media in coverage, urging fuming Floridians to move to the Big Apple
The ads will run through May in Fort Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Orlando, Tampa and West Palm Beach.
The city of Chicago also is trying outbound marketing in states, including Florida, with such legislation, reports the Chicago Tribune.
“World Business Chicago, the city’s public-private economic development arm, bought full-page ads Thursday in the Orlando Sentinel, Dallas Morning News and Phoenix Business Journal to launch a new marketing campaign and promote Chicago as a more inclusive business climate,” the Tribune asserts.
3 comments
Geoff Yourself
April 8, 2022 at 11:42 am
Yeah, Florida passes laws from the Middle Ages but everyone else is crazy. Florida passes laws based on passages from the Old Testament and religious fanaticism, but everyone else is freaking out. No one does hysterical like the GOP McCarthyites.
TJC
April 8, 2022 at 11:47 am
Ashley Moody is delusional or dishonest, probably a bit of both. While it is true that California has fewer people moving in than out, it’s the cost of living there that’s the main driver, not “radical policies.”
And this line of Moody’s is a hoot: “They don’t want people coming here because they think they’ll fall in love with Florida and move to the ‘Free State of Florida’…” Apart from being a pronoun reference nightmare, it sounds like the rantings of a politicized third grader. Then again, like her boss DeSantis, that’s the level of communication they choose to use because they believe it fits their fan base well. And sadly, that’s an insult on one level and too true on another.
Don’t even like them
April 12, 2022 at 2:44 pm
You know who wants to move to Florida?
Staten Island and orange country.
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