The culture war between the states

Relocation news hasn’t been good for Democratic states, either. Giant hedge fund Citadel recently announced that it was moving from Chicago to Miami, while Caterpillar is shifting its headquarters to Texas from Illinois. Hewlett–Packard, a company synonymous with Silicon Valley, is relocating from San Jose to Houston, while hedge funds like Elliot Management and Point72 are shifting their headquarters from Manhattan and Connecticut, respectively, to Florida. As these moves suggest, the advantage post-pandemic that red states have on traditional economic and business issues seems to have widened. All ten of the states rated by business executives this year as top places to locate their firms were Republican-leaning, led by Texas and Florida, while all ten of executives’ least favored states trend solidly Democratic.

The reaction in some blue states to the Dobbs decision has heightened a growing cultural war among states. Until now, that battle has been fought on limited economic terms—by states, for instance, banning travel by their employees to places with laws to which local politicians objected. Recently, for example, California announced that it will no longer pay for travel by its state employees to four states—Arizona, Indiana, Louisiana, and Utah—because they have passed laws banning biological males who have transitioned to female from competing in girls’ school sports. California has now enacted travel bans on 22 states that Sacramento officials say have laws discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals, though Newsom has sparked controversy by vacationing in one of those states, Montana. A handful of other Democratic states—Washington, Minnesota, New York, Vermont, and Connecticut—have similar multistate employee travel bans in place.