The Pity of The Preening

(Image from Brewminate)

Beginning in 2016 the City of San Francisco prohibited travel to and business with states that disagreed with progressive values. (The restrictions applied to the City and its employees.) The list of banned states that had different laws on LGBTQ, abortion, and/or voting rights has mushroomed to 30, and San Francisco has found itself greatly inconvenienced.

a new city report said the law has been ineffective and cumbersome....The report also found the law adds costs and complexity to city contracting...

“It’s an ineffective policy that complicates the business of San Francisco government and makes it very likely that we pay more than we should for goods and services,” [Supervisor Rafael] Mandelman said in an interview Monday...

Supervisors established the boycott in October 2016 when they approved a law that banned city-funded travel to states that had restricted LGBTQ rights in the wake of the 2015 Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The law also prevented the city from approving contracts with companies based in the banned states.

In subsequent years, supervisors expanded the boycott to include states that passed laws to limit abortion access and voting rights.

Your humble blogger believes that it is perfectly within the City's right to conduct its affairs according to its own moral code. But the City had another objective--to convert other jurisdictions to San Francisco values by withholding business. Accomplishment of the latter has been nil.

[City Administrator Carmet] Chu’s office said in its Friday report that it could not find any concrete evidence that the states targeted by the boycott had changed their laws because of San Francisco’s actions.

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,” Chu’s report said. “Few, if any, other jurisdictions implement travel or contracting bans as expansive as the City’s.”

Lectures and threats rarely convert anyone to a cause, though San Francisco may have had a chance if it was excellent in its governance. However, its widely publicized failures in dealing with crime, homelessness, and drug use, plus the exodus of middle-class families and businesses, have put paid to that notion.

The pity of this preening is that it wasted money, squandered moral capital, and made fellow Americans less inclined to help San Francisco when it needs it, and that day will assuredly come.