Missouri Bill Would Ban Many Companies From "Refusing To Deal With" Anti-Trans Businesses

Wonder how that would work out given the number of firearms vendors that actively boycott liberal things like budlight. Police departments are going to be all outta ammo.

Well, according to the Citizens United decision, corporations are people and money is speech, so a company deciding with who they’re going to spend money is protected speech.

Sounds like the anti-BDS laws. Somehow that's a thing, and I'm not sure how that's even allowed.

Also, I was amused that BDS also stands for "Biden Derangement Syndrome". In the years before Denver Post closed their comments, they ramped their censorship way up and for some reason "BDS" would trigger their nanny-filter. I'm supposing even the mention of the boycott of Israel was bridge too far for the nannies at Denver Post.

Also worth noting that it takes someone or a group with enough time and deep enough pockets to tend it to court just to set everything straight.

until someone with standing files suit,

...and what that case will end up looking like is a company suing Missouri because Missouri won't buy shit from them because they in turn won't buy shit from companies that...aren't carbon neutral, or also work with the timber industry, or don't have enough PoC on their corporate boards, or w/e.

Time to pull out in from Texas.

It's a stalling tactic that all these Red States keep using to enact something clearly in violation of The US Constitution and provisions, so they can wait out the time until the case is taken by a superior court. https://www.txcourts.gov/supreme/case-summaries/

Feel free to dig through.

Removing any free choice would be a violation of first amendment rights. People can NOT participate in what is mentioned here, but you can't force them to participate.

Thanks for the catch, I edited the comment.

Yeah, that's already a thing. New York, California, Florida, Missouri, and Illinois enforced their anti-boycott laws in 2018 against Airbnb when Airbnb said they would remove Israeli listings that were in areas where the land was taken from people. Airbnb stood to be completely forbidden from the largest economic markets in the United States at the behest of the Israeli strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan.

There's been challenges to these kinds of laws like Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip, but the State upheld the Legislation and SCOTUS refused to hear the case letting stand Arkansas' ability to force all companies operating within the State to "stand with Israel" or face removal from any State program and anyone whom they did business with removal from State funds. Because that's what happened with the Newspaper. The Newspaper itself had no contracts with the State, but those who advertised might and they would be prohibited from purchasing ad space in the newspaper.

There's Jordahl v. Brnovich where a lawyer was providing legal services in Coconino County, Arizona and was found by Arizona's anti-boycott law with regards to Israel. Eventually appellate courts sided with the lawyer that such a ban on boycott's was against the State's Constitution, but Legislators eventually carved out an exception for legal firms and rendered all further cases moot before it could make it to the Supreme Court of Arizona.

There's Martin v. Wrigley where a filmmaker would not sign a pledge for State film making funding that they would not "boycott Israel" per the State of Georgia's anti-boycott laws. In the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the court ruled that the law was compelled speech. The State then amended the law to not apply to businesses under $100,000 rendering any final challenge moot. And any losses were indemnified as the State of Georgia claimed qualified immunity. In appeals, the Eleventh Circuit in a per curium that was unpublished affirmed the lower court's ruling but did not rule on the full Constitutionality of the law. The Eleventh dropped the case completely in June of 2023.

There's Koontz v. Watson where a Mennonite church boycotted Israel and the State of Kansas required a math teacher who was a member of that church to sign an affidavit that she did not boycott Israel before she could attend a required teaching seminar. That one went really complicated, very long story short, the State carved out an exception in HB 2482 and the court's dismissed the matter as moot. The Teacher was allowed to attend the training.

And I could go on and on and on, because at the State level there are several legal challenges in pretty much every State to the various State laws that prohibit boycotting Israel. So yeah, on this "it's already a thing" pretty much everywhere and we are nowhere near through enough court cases to get some final resolution on these kinds of "you cannot boycott Israel" laws. They're likely going to be around for another ten to twenty years if we just keep chipping away at them via legal challenges.

And that's likely the success that Missouri is trying to get with this law. Get a good solid thirty or so years out of "you cannot boycott conservative values" and seed things into a new generation by force, since allowing people to measure these conservative values by their own accord isn't working. But yeah, if this law passes, it's golden for at least three decades or enough of Missouri's Assembly changes to remove the law.

The social contract of tolerance

I figured as much. When people (or companies) say "I don't want to be associated with statements like this," the right's response depends on whose statements they are. If they are statements from the right, then it's "cancel culture" and must be banned. If they are statements from the left, then it's just Free Speech and no action against those saying it is allowed for any reason.

It's such an obvious double standard.

the law is written specifically to disallow people from boycotting companies that destroy the environment, hate LGBTQ, actively promote anti-LGBTQ ideals, etc., but it DOESN'T stop the alternate

That's correct! The law is written to be non-commutative. That is it works one way, but the lack of indicating the other, implicitly indicates that it is not true. Here are the sections from the bill.

(a) Engages in the exploration, production, utilization, transportation, sale, or manufacturing of, fossil fuel-based energy, timber, mining, or agriculture;
(b) Engages in, facilitates, or supports the manufacture, import, distribution, marketing or advertising, sale, or lawful use of firearms, ammunition or component parts and accessories of firearms or ammunition;
(c) Does not meet, is not expected to meet, or does not commit to meet environmental standards or disclosure criteria, in particular to eliminate, reduce, offset, or disclose greenhouse gas emissions;
(d) Does not meet, is not expected to meet, or does not commit to meet any specified criteria with respect to the compensation and composition of the company's corporate board and the employees of the company;
(e) Does not facilitate, is not expected to facilitate, or does not commit to facilitate access to abortion, sex or gender change, or transgender surgery or medical treatments;

As you can see they are worded to have meaning in a single direction but aren't reflexive in language. So this allows people to boycott the opposite of the above, but prohibits boycotting anything above.

It's literally a law compelling conservative belief. And they know it's not going to survive a legal challenge, but they also know they'll get something like two or three decades out it before being completely overturned. It's literally a legislative Hail, Mary.

They could always say that they don't see the business relationship being profitable and just shut up afterwards.

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect." - Frank Wilhoit

The government is not allowed to punish them for using it.

They shouldn't but they do anyway and most people don't care until it goes against their politics.