California's Ban on State-Funded Travel to Some States

One topic that I like discussing with students in Constitutional Law is AB 1887, which is the California that prohibits state-funded travel to states with LGBTQ policies that California finds obnoxious. There are 18 states on the list. Texas, which is one of these states, tried to bring a challenge in the Supreme Court's original jurisdiction last year but the petition was dismissed. I know of no challenges currently pending to AB 1887, though that may be because there just hasn't been much travel at all in the past two years.

If California had a regulatory statute that created two classes of sister states, such a law would almost certainly be unconstitutional under the Dormant Commerce Clause (or perhaps on other grounds). But AB 1887 is not about regulation--it's about spending money. A state has broader latitude about spending as opposed to regulation, though not without limit. Assuming you could find someone with standing to bring a constitutional challenge, is this statute valid or invalid discrimination?

I'm not sure. Saying that California must spend its money equally among the other states is a broad proposition that seems unworkable. On the other hand, if every state did something like what California does for its own policy of choice, that would amount to a lot of tit-for-tat retaliation that could be unduly burdensome for interstate commerce. This might become even more of a problem once we have states where abortion is broadly available and others where abortion is a crime. Having a national convention of state officials might become impossible, unless some simply attend on Zoom and thus spend no money at all.