Michael R. Strain, Columnist

What Greg Abbott and Gavin Newsom Sadly Have in Common

Both governors are telling business what to do, but the Texas ban on vaccine mandates is a lot scarier than California’s order on gender-neutral toys.

October 15, 2021 at 12:30 PM UTC

By Michael R. Strain

Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and Arthur F. Burns Scholar in Political Economy at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the author of “The American Dream Is Not Dead: (But Populism Could Kill It).”

A Republican who’s suppressing the rights of business.
Photographer: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

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Greg Abbott of Texas and Gavin Newsom of California are about as far apart on the political spectrum as two governors can be. But they have at least one thing in common: Both are pushing the heavy hand of government into the affairs of private businesses to inappropriately affect cultural change.

Last weekend, Newsom, a progressive San Francisco Democrat, signed a law requiring large retailers in California to have gender-neutral sections of their stores for certain children’s items, including toys. And on Monday, Abbott, a right-wing Republican, signed an executive order outlawing Covid-19 vaccine mandates by private businesses for their employees.