The new bill comes after Andrew Bailey vowed to investigate companies pulling business from X, formerly Twitter over hate speech.
The new bill comes after Andrew Bailey vowed to investigate companies pulling business from X, formerly Twitter over hate speech.
But it isn’t, and it fits in line with the Civil Rights Act Title VI which prohibits businesses that work for the federal government from discriminating against certain classes. This is the same law, but at the state level. Speech is not curtailed unless you choose the option that requires curtailment.
Like I say, the business is free to not take state contracts then refuse business to whoever they like (just like the gay cake baker did), but if they want to work for the state they have to follow state rules.
What if I just don’t want to donate to the NRA? What if I just decide not to advertise on Twitter? Maybe I can say either of those decisions are for financial reasons, but in the long run it’ll cost me more in lawyers fees to prove it than give them some token amount of money. That doesn’t seem right, particularly the lack of requirements to do business with companies politically aligned on the other end of the spectrum.
As someone who occasionally works government contracts this isn’t an academic question for me, though at least I can prove I don’t advertise anywhere. I can’t claim politically neutral donations, though. I frequently donate to queer-youth-focused charities (although they don’t verify that they refuse to help conservative teen queer-folk, so maybe they are considered neutral?) and never to right-wing causes.
Edit: phone really ate up the end of this post and I was too rushed to reread. Mostly fixed now probably…
Well that’s just the futility of banning boycotts. Unless someone actually says they’re boycotting, you’d have almost no way of proving that they were.
So you don’t live in the US?
Those are fine by this law.
What this law actually does would be closer to if you refused to do business with another company because **that ** company donates to the NRA, then the State of Missouri refuses to use you as a vendor.
What’s the protected class in this case?
Apparently, transphobes
Read the bill.
It’s several assorted industries, businesses that do not meet, are expected not to meet or do not commit to meet any particular environmental standard, employee compensation standard, board composition standard, or facilitating access to abortion, sex change, or transgender medical treatment. What exactly this entails is about a third of the bill: https://www.senate.mo.gov/24info/pdf-bill/intro/SB1061.pdf
So, if you refuse to deal with a company because that company doesn’t have the right mix of demographics on their board, or works with the timber industry, or their health insurance doesn’t cover trans HRT, then the State of Missouri won’t use you as a vendor.
Is your position that people should be able to discriminate based on any identifying trait? Then you’re against The Constitution, and you will lose in court.
Well that’s the thing, sexual discrimination isn’t really protected in the US outside of employment.
The US has:
I’m actually in 2 minds about whether the 1st Amendment would prevent this. One the one hand, there is a clear gap in the Federal law that State law should be able to fill. On the other, that gap was exactly the same thing as the gay cake baker successfully challenged against.