The governor left town last week as state lawmakers scattered for a monthlong summer recess, but unlike previous trips, didn’t at first announce his whereabouts. News of the governor’s travels to Montana, first reported by CalMatters, immediately sparked backlash from his critics.
It’s unclear if Newsom violated any law — a spokesperson said the governor paid for the trip to visit family and noted the ban doesn’t apply to personal travel — but the vacation presents unfortunate optics for a liberal firebrand.
The governor has plenty of reasons to travel to Montana: His in-laws live there, and it’s where he and First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom were married. The two went so far as to name their eldest daughter “Montana.”
At issue is a state law, signed in 2016 by former Gov. Jerry Brown, which prohibits state-funded travel to states with laws that California deems as discriminating based on sexual orientation or gender. Today that list includes 22 states with a combined population of around 135 million people. The California Department of Justice, not the governor’s office, determines the list.
Montana landed on it last year after enacting a pair of laws that barred transgender students from joining school teams matching their gender identities and allowed businesses to seek exemptions from some laws under the auspices of religious liberty, which LGBTQ advocates said could open the door to discrimination.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement at the time that the Montana measures were among “a recent, dangerous wave of discriminatory new bills signed into law in states across the country.”
Bonta added five states to the prohibited list that day. Florida was another.
A spokesperson for the governor’s office said Wednesday that the news reporting thus far shows a “lack of understanding toward state policy” and conflates Newsom’s personal vacation with prohibited state-funded travel.
“Connecting the two is irresponsible and implies there is something untoward,” said Erin Mellon, the governor’s communications director, said in an email.
“This is a personal trip to visit family who live outside the state. We are not in the business of regulating where people have family or where they spend their vacation. Nor will we persecute them for visiting their family. The press shouldn’t either.”
When asked if the governor had traveled with a state security detail, Mellon said she couldn’t comment due to security concerns. Governors in the past have generally traveled with California Highway Patrol officers acting as bodyguards.
It’s unclear if the state’s travel ban would apply to state-funded security officers. The law does provide an exception for “the protection of public health, welfare, or safety” and allows affected state entities to determine what that means. A California Highway Patrol representative said Wednesday that the agency was examining whether that exemption would apply.
