San Francisco Ends Boycott of 30 States with Conservative Laws after Limitations Proved Ineffective, Costly
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to end a boycott of 30 states that passed conservatives laws after the rule proved costly and ineffective.
The board voted 7-4 to repeal a 2016 law that prohibited city employees from traveling to or doing business with companies in states that passed conservative laws. The board of supervisors first enacted the law in an effort to punish states that had enacted what it viewed as restrictions on LGBT rights after the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Since 2015, the board had amended the law to include states that, in its view, had limited voting rights and abortion access.
“It’s not achieving the goal we want to achieve,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the sponsor of the legislation to repeal the boycott. “It is making our government less efficient.”
The rollback comes after a report by the city administrator’s office found that no states ever appeared to change their own laws in response to the city’s boycott. A budget and legislative analyst’s report also found the city had done business with the states on the boycott list. A one-year period between mid-2021 and mid-2022 saw waivers for contracts and purchase orders totaling $791 million. Meanwhile, the budget and legislative analyst also found that the city had spent nearly $475,000 in staffing expenses to carry out the boycott.
The law “has created additional administrative burden for City staff and vendors and unintended consequences for San Francisco citizens, such as limiting enrichment and developmental opportunities,” according to the city administrator’s report. “Few, if any, other jurisdictions implement travel or contracting bans as expansive as the City’s.”
The report also noted the boycott had other unwanted consequences, including adding more red tape for a program that paid for teens to visit historically black colleges and universities, as many HBCUs are located in banned states.
Mayor London Breed previously said she would support changing or altogether repealing the boycott law. Breed’s office said in a statement that she “recognizes the well-intentioned effort behind” the boycott but also “acknowledges the many difficulties that affect contracting in the City.”
The four supervisors who voted against repealing the boycott expressed concern that the city did not spend enough time weighing how the move would impact San Francisco’s small businesses.
Supervisors Shamann Walton, who previously told National Review that the San Francisco advisory committee’s recommendation that the city pay out hefty reparations to the city’s longtime black residents does not go far enough toward making things right, warned there could be “many unintended consequences of the repeal” and said as states are doubling down on their conservative laws he does not want to make it seem that the city is “not still fighting against these discriminatory practices and laws.”
