GOP can't blame Dems for HB2 failure
Published December 23, 2016
Editorial by Wilmington Star-News, December 23, 2016.
Everyone expected the General Assembly to repeal HB2, the "bathroom law" that demands that transgender people who look like women go into men's rooms, and vice verse. Editorials had already been written, podcasts praised the repeal in advance.
But the GOP lawmakers didn't repeal it. Instead, they inserted a poison pill into the bill and then blamed Democrats for not supporting it.
The GOP-dominated House and Senate convened Wednesday for a session to repeal HB2, which has cost the state millions of dollars in lost business. Concerts and conventions have been canceled, the NCAA, the ACC and the NBA are among sports groups who have canceled high-profile events in the state, and businesses decided against expansions that would have added hundreds of jobs.
The repeal bill was defeated 32-16 in the Senate.
House Bill 2 leaves gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people out of the state’s anti-discrimination protections, prevents local governments from passing broad non-discrimination ordinances covering those groups, and orders transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds with their birth sex.
HB2 is a millstone around our neck, passed to protect against a threat of peeping toms donning women's clothes and mascara to spy on females in bathrooms. Municipalities around the nation have laws similar to the one Charlotte passed and the problem is virtually non-existent.
But like the oft-cited specter of rampant voter fraud that also doesn't exist, facts don't seem to matter.
HB2 was passed in response to an ordinance Charlotte enacted letting transgender people use the bathroom of their choice. The Honorables in Raleigh – and we use the term loosely – said if Charlotte repealed its ordinance, they would roll back HB2.
Charlotte repealed its transgender protections on Monday, but conservatives in Raleigh said that wasn’t enough. So Charlotte repealed the rest of the ordinance Wednesday morning, which had added protections against other types of discrimination.
Republicans claimed Charlotte’s actions had broken trust in the deal.
"I'm sorry folks, I don't trust them, and our folks don't trust them. There's no reason to trust them," said Senate leader Phil Berger after the fracas ended.
But trust is a two-way relationship.
The poison pill Republicans inserted came in the form of a moratorium that would have prevented municipalities from passing their own anti-discrimination ordinances or even setting their own minimum wage levels. The moratorium would have lasted until the end of the next session of the General Assembly, probably in late summer or fall.
Democrats feared it would become permanent. They said that wasn’t a full repeal and voted against the measure.
Republicans blamed Democratic opposition for killing the deal.
That’s ludicrous. Republicans, who have veto-proof majorities in both chambers, hold all the cards in the General Assembly. They own whatever happens there.
The truth is, Republican came under pressure from conservatives who didn’t want the law repealed.
So HB2 remains the law of the land, despite what the GOP had promised.
December 25, 2016 at 11:43 am
Lou J Apa says:
As a citizen of NC, I am so embarrassed by this whole matter that was begun by Charlotte Democrats to force the Republican government to be ridiculed and to be displaced in power. The State has suffered, whatever it has, at the hands of the DNC! Shameful.....?
December 26, 2016 at 8:07 pm
Norm Kelly says:
Libs will call it finger pointing, but facts are those darn pesky things that libs always avoid. Fact is that Charlotte started this fracas when they overstepped their authority. Fact is Charlotte would not have caused any issues with the state if they had limited their ordinance to Charlotte city buildings/facilities. If the people of Charlotte are warped enough to let males & females OF ALL AGES share facilities, then the people of Charlotte could get the disaster afterwards, and no one else in the state would have cared. But, no, typical of libs, Charlotte's city council decided the new outrageous dangerous ordinance applied EVERYWHERE, even to private business. So, whether it's called a FACT or finger pointing (one by thinkers, the other by libs), it's a situation that started with Charlotte.
The legislature said they would repeal HB2 if Charlotte repealed their goofy ordinance. Charlotte only did half their job. So, rightfully, our legislature was wary of Charlotte and other lib areas implementing another goofy ordinance right after HB2 was repealed. We can expect that Charlotte, Chapel Hill, and probably Raleigh were waiting in the wings with an ordinance within days of HB2's repeal. We know council in Chapel Hill is so goofy and cares nothing about citizens rights, only their wacky socialist agenda, that they've had the wording for their ordinance ready to go for months; just HB2 stood in the way. We also know from Charlotte's half-witted repeal of their ordinance that as soon as HB2 was gone, they'd implement their ordinance regardless of citizen safety or common sense. So, for what reason would the legislature have trusted ANY local government from implementing a Charlotte-style ordinance immediately after HB2's demise?
Common sense would be for the legislature to repeal HB2 with the caveat that NO local ordinance regarding 'gender reassignment' would be implemented for a specified period of time. This would give local governments hell-bent on destroying citizen safety time to work out the details with the legislature as to what would & wouldn't work. The fact that other protections against goofy local ordinances was part of the moratorium is just another tid-bit of legislative prerogative. Not necessarily bad, but could have been negotiated on.
Seems that the one thing missing from talk of HB2 repeal is 'compromise'. If the legislature caved on HB2, what were libs willing to give? Why were libs in the legislature so determined to make sure no protections were left in place? What did libs in the legislature know that they weren't telling Republicans about plans for after HB2 repeal? What were libs keeping up their sleeve? Were libs negotiating with Republicans or demanding nothing but full unencumbered repeal of HB2? Any compromise by libs? Or is this another instance where compromise means libs get everything they want, Republicans cave on everything?!
One thing is for sure. The most recent election proves citizens are tired of what used to be called compromise. Compromise no longer means libs win everything, everytime. Libs have been soundly rejected across the nation. Kinda means citizens are tired of business as usual. Voters have rejected lib schemes. Again. Except at the governor level here in NC. Roy ran on the single agenda item of repealing HB2. The only reason Roy won is because ALL of his ads spoke about repealing HB2. Without Charlotte creating the problem in the first place, Roy would have had absolutely nothing to run on. And HB2 barely provided him with enough to run on. It's common sense that the problem didn't exist that Charlotte was trying to fix. 'Those people' have been using the bathroom of their choice for decades, why did Charlotte create a problem? To give Roy an agenda item to run on. Why else? No reason, other than Charlotte is run by a goofy, lib council. With some intelligent city council members, their goofy ordinance would never have seen the light of day. With a city council that really/actually cared about the safety of their citizens, the goofy ordinance would never have been put to paper.
