Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says state employees can no longer make payroll donations to Planned Parenthood under a new state law that bans abortion providers and their affiliates from partnering with local government entities.
Senate Bill 22, which went into effect in September, is already having some of the impacts reproductive health advocates warned about: a ban on a sex education curriculum partnership between Planned Parenthood and Austin Independent School District, an end to a free condom distribution program in El Paso. Now, an opinion issued by Paxton last week will kick Planned Parenthood out from the State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC), a program that allows state employees to donate part of their paycheck to a charity of their choice. Paxton says the program constitutes a “taxpayer resource transaction”—the hazy language used to describe activities banned under the new law.
Advocates have long worried about how the nebulous new language could be interpreted and stretched. “This has always been our greatest concern about SB 22,” says Sarah Wheat, chief external affairs officer for Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas. “I think it’s an intentionally vague political term that is dismantling these longtime partnerships in different ways.” Texas lawmakers spend every legislative session trying to block funding for Planned Parenthood, Wheat notes, but she says that trying to dictate individuals’ financial decisions is “a new political low.”
