From Politifact Texas: Business group says bathroom law could lose Texas $8.5 billion in GDP, up to 185,000 jobs

They rate the claim mostly false.

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A major business group predicts billions of dollars in economic losses should Texas lawmakers advance "discriminatory" legislation including so-called bathroom bills or measures limiting local control of non-discrimination ordinances.

We checked on whether the widely cited projections, linked to actions in other states, hold up.

Portions of the study commissioned by the Texas Association of Business proved solid. But other elements were shaky. One projection, for instance, rests in the Super Bowl set for Houston on Feb. 5, 2017 being moved to another state. Another extrapolates Texas losses from research rooted in Arizona’s immigration law--not that state’s failed proposal targeting LGBT residents. And the report’s biggest projected loss to Texas starts from an Indiana legislator’s comment that might lack documentary backup.
There could be heft to claims that a Texas Senate proposal poses economic risks.

Opponents of Senate Bill 6, requiring Texas residents to use bathrooms matching their assigned sex at birth, underscore North Carolina’s experience, which gets TAB attention elsewhere in its report presenting the possible economic losses. In 2016, Republicans in the Tarheel State curbed protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender residents, touching off economic losses mostly tied to boycotts adding up to as much as $201 million, PolitiFact North Carolina confirmed.

The TAB, which calls itself the state’s leading advocate for employers, initially highlighted the study that caught our attention in a Dec. 6, 2016, press release urging the 2017 Legislature to spurn "discriminatory legislation." That release said the study, undertaken at St. Edward’s University in Austin, found that a discriminatory law could result in $964 million to $8.5 billion in reduced state gross domestic product and up to 185,000 lost jobs, partly due to fallout in the tourism sector. State GDP refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a state in a particular period of time.

We broke down the figures in the study, exploring research assumptions and identifying instances of unstated or questionable sourcing. Separately, outside experts sounded a few cautionary notes.

This just in:

- Texas Tribune: After Super Bowl, NFL raises prospect of Texas "bathroom bill" impacting future games.

From the Washington Post: Trump’s intervention into policing, voting and immigration sets up showdown with America’s largest cities

For out look at federalism.

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In an executive order signed Wednesday, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to find ways to defund cities and jurisdictions out of step with his immigration priorities. That action — which could cost sanctuary cities including Washington, New York and Los Angeles millions of dollars — is the latest in a series of moves where Trump has appeared willing to step on state-level or municipal prerogatives.

In the scuffle, U.S. mayors have emerged as key players in the resistance to Trump’s agenda.

“Cities know how important local control is, because we are in touch with the people we represent most closely. This is a president who’s been clear that he wants to centralize as much authority as he can in himself,” Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges said Wednesday. “That is dangerous for our democracy, I believe, and he is using the levers of our democracy to centralize his authority.”

At the center of the sanctuary city debate is a disagreement over whether local police officers should be required to help immigration officials enforce federal immigration laws. Many liberal mayors, including Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and New York City’s Bill De Blasio, have argued that requiring local police departments to assist immigration agents with deportations could sow distrust among immigrant populations. It could also discourage undocumented victims or witnesses from coming forward to report crimes.

“This is a federalism issue,” said Jorge Elorza (D), the mayor of Providence, R.I., who is the son of immigrants. “The idea of local control is deeply embedded in American history, and what we have now is a very aggressive attempt by the federal government to commandeer our local police departments to become immigration agents.”

He vowed “massive and aggressive lawsuits,” a resistance echoed by several local leaders.

Kevin de Leon, the Democratic president pro tempore of the California state Senate, said the state legislature is prepared to “explore all of our legal options” to fight the order.

“Singling out states and cities with punitive threats and withholding federal resources as today’s order on sanctuary cities does is unconstitutional,” de Leon said. “It’s not the job of our local and county and state law enforcement to turn the cogs on President Trump’s deportation machine.”