politics

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 In appeals, the Eleventh Circuit in a per curium that was unpublished affirmed the lower court's ruling but did not rule on the full Constitutionality of the law.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.