A bill originally intended to bar California from contracting with companies that boycott Israel has passed the state Assembly. But one of its co-authors says the current language of AB 2844 has rendered it useless as a tool to fight anti-Israel boycotts.
Assemblyman Travis Allen (R-Huntington Beach) said amendments inserted by the Assembly’s Appropriations Committee deleted key sections and significantly changed the language of AB 2844 before the Assembly passed it on June 2.
The bill now moves on to the state Senate, where it will likely undergo further amendments.
“They forced amendments that gutted the bill in its entirety,” Allen said of the Appropriations Committee. “The bill in its current form is not a pro-Israel or anti-Israel bill, and if it is to remain in current form would actually set back the anti-BDS movement in California and nationwide.”
Chief among Allen’s complaints is that the bill removed language citing the harmful effects of anti-Israel boycotts. Instead, it requires the state attorney general to create a list of companies that engage in boycotts against sovereign nations and to “provide an assessment to the legislature of the constitutionality of prohibiting a company on the list … from entering into a contract with a public entity.”
Allen said an attorney general deciding the matter “could become a political tool that could raise doubts nationwide about anti-BDS legislation progressing in other states or signed into law.”
State legislatures in New York and Illinois already have passed anti-BDS laws. Allen submitted his bill in January, but later allowed Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica), a member of the Legislature’s Jewish Caucus, to take over the role of lead author.
The bill sailed through various committees, but was heavily amended once it reached the Appropriations Committee. In a floor debate last week, Allen spoke against the bill but ultimately voted for it after Bloom “acknowledged the problems with the bill in its current form and gave his word that he would work as the bill moves through the Senate to essentially change the bill back into an effective anti-BDS bill,” Allen said.
Allen said he believes majorities in the Senate and Assembly “are very pro-Israel. As a legislature we are united in our desire to fight bigotry and anti-Semitism.”
The Senate is expected to take up the bill later this summer, and it likely will undergo another round of amendments before a vote.
Although Allen is hopeful the bill will return to its initial intent of specifically fighting anti-Israel boycotts before it goes to the governor’s desk for a signature, he is monitoring the process carefully.
“We must remain vigilant,” he said, “because a bad bill is worse than no bill at all.”