NC Rescinds Charlotte HRO

[Jimmy]

I don't mean to argue fine points, but I don't believe there's any plan in NC or elsewhere to pass 80s style HROs that cover only based on sexual orientation.

When HB2 goes away, local governments in NC can again pass fully inclusive HROs that include gender identity. Whether or not Charlotte is first out of the gate, I'd look for Asheville to be close to the top of the list of cities and counties looking to test the post-HB2 world.

[fsquid]

Sounds like there aren't enough votes at the state level to rescind HB2.

[Jimmy]

Fascinating.  Then that means Charlotte will retain its defunct HRO. 

(Which I'm selfishly happy for as some litigation pending in NC requires HB2 in place for the courts to act...)

[finehoe]

HB2 repeal bogs down as support unclear

RALEIGH

The General Assembly returned to Raleigh on Wednesday to vote on a repeal of House Bill 2, but that goal was bogged down by reluctant legislators who either support the current law or are concerned that Charlotte's city council isn't being straightforward about its intentions.

House Republicans have been meeting behind closed doors since convening the fifth special session of the year on Wednesday morning. House Rules Chairman David Lewis, a Republican from Harnett County, said shortly before convening there weren't enough members of the GOP caucus at that time who support repeal to approve doing that.

"I felt pretty good about where we were yesterday," Lewis told reporters. "I thought Charlotte had done a full repeal and we were going to come in and consider the same thing. I don't know where we are right now."

The Charlotte City Council without notice on Monday said it had voted to repeal its anti-discrimination ordinance that had led to the passage of HB2 earlier this year on condition that the General Assembly would repeal HB2 by the end of the year. Gov. Pat McCrory called the legislature back into a Wednesday session to do that.

But on Tuesday evening it surfaced that Charlotte had not repealed its entire anti-discrimination ordinance. The city attorney said he thought the part of the ordinance that was repealed — the so-called bathroom provision — would satisfy the legislature's concern that special accommodation not be given to those who want to use public restrooms that do not coincide with their gender at birth.

The council met early Wednesday to resolve those concerns by repealing the rest of the ordinance, which prohibited discrimination in public contracts in the city. The action by Charlotte on Wednesday morning did not set a Dec. 31 deadline, as the earlier deal had.

But it was enough to shake up fragile negotiations among House Republicans who spent four hours in a caucus meeting Tuesday night, as well as Wednesday's meetings.

"It seems like a small thing, but it's not," Lewis said. "We're trying to act in good faith, and if it was a legitimate mistake that Charlotte made, that's one thing. If it was something else, that really hurts my ability to stand up and tell members it's a re-set. We've said all along we think re-set is the way to go."

Repealing HB2 would eliminate a controversial law that lost North Carolina millions of dollars in revenue and major sporting events in protest.

The House did meet briefly Wednesday morning to adopt rules to operate under during the special session. That's when a knot of conservative Republican opposition surfaced, with 10 members voting against holding the session.

Rep. Jeff Collins, a Republican from Rocky Mount, said on the floor that the session was unconstitutional because there was no "extraordinary occasion" as the governor's proclamation declared, and all business could be delayed until next year. Rep. Michael Speciale, a New Bern Republican, and Rep. Larry Pittman, a Concord Republican, spoke in support of Collins. But House Speaker Tim Moore ruled Collins' protest motion out of order.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article122208429.html#storylink=cpy

[fsquid]

Senate votes it down and the House doesn't vote on it

[vicupstate]

NCAA giving NC a matter of days to repeal HB2 or be frozen out of tournaments for six years


Writing on behalf of the N.C. Sports Association, Scott Dupree, executive director of the Raleigh Sports Alliance, told lawmakers that NCAA committees are deciding this month where to hold events through 2022, including basketball tournament games in Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro.

Dupree said N.C. cities and schools have submitted 133 bids for NCAA events with a potential economic impact of $250 million.

"In a matter of days, our state's sports tourism industry will suffer crushing, long-term losses and will essentially close its doors to NCAA business," he wrote legislators. "Our window to act is closing rapidly."

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article131003339.html

[fsquid]

Its still weird that the NCAA pulls them out of NC but not Memphis, Nashville, Tulsa, Witchita which also doesn't have a HRO I believe.

[Tacachale]

Its still weird that the NCAA pulls them out of NC but not Memphis, Nashville, Tulsa, Witchita which also doesn't have a HRO I believe.

It's not (just) a matter of not having an HRO. It's a matter of having HB2 which enforces legalized discrimination.

[finehoe]

North Carolina Governor Expected to Sign Repeal of Bathroom Law

Both houses of the North Carolina General Assembly voted in favor of a bill on Thursday that would repeal the controversial law affecting transgender bathroom use in public buildings, part of a compromise worked out earlier in the week between Republican legislative leaders and the Democratic governor.

But with anger rising over the compromise from groups on both the left and the right, it was unclear whether the anticipated signing of the new bill into law would extricate North Carolina from the roiling national controversy over the proper levels of legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

The bill passed the Senate, 32 to 16, in a late morning vote after only brief discussion, and passed the House in the afternoon by a vote of 70 to 48 after fiery denunciations by some conservative and liberal members. It now requires the signature of Gov. Roy Cooper, who has said that he supported the bill.

Phil Berger, a Republican and the Senate leader, acknowledged that many people were probably not pleased by the compromise, which would repeal the current law, known as House Bill 2. However, he said, "compromise sometimes is difficult, and this bill represents that."

House Bill 2 was signed in March 2016 by the governor at the time, Pat McCrory, a Republican. It curbs legal protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and, in perhaps its most contentious measure, requires transgender people in public buildings to use the bathroom that corresponds with the gender on their birth certificate.

The new bill repeals House Bill 2, creates a moratorium on local nondiscrimination ordinances through 2020 and leaves regulation of bathrooms to state lawmakers.

In a brief statement on Wednesday, Mr. Cooper — whose razor-thin victory over Mr. McCrory in November was due in large part to voter frustration over the national backlash over House Bill 2 — said that the measure was "not a perfect deal, but it repeals House Bill 2 and begins to repair our reputation."

In the House, Representative Deb Butler, one of the state's few openly gay legislators, was among those who said the compromise would not ameliorate "the stigma and suffering" associated with House Bill 2. "We would rather suffer HB2 than to have this body, one more time, deny us the full and unfettered protection of the law," she said.

Representative Bert Jones, a Republican, also opposed the compromise, noting his belief that God "created us male and female," and said that it was not discriminatory for him to hold that belief.

"It troubles me today that we are doing this in this manner," he said.

But in the end, more legislators appeared to believe that the state needed to do something to end the boycotts prompted by the existing law. Senator Dan Blue, a Democrat and the minority leader, said that the compromise "brings an end to an economic threat."

Gay rights advocates have been harshly critical of the proposed compromise. Cathryn Oakley, senior legislative counsel for the Human Rights Campaign, said that it would leave lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people with no statewide anti-discrimination ordinance and no ability to seek such protections from local government for a number of years.

"What that means for the L.G.B.T. community is that we continue to be boxed out of nondiscrimination protections," she said.

Chris Sgro, executive director of the gay rights group Equality North Carolina, said that the proposal "keeps North Carolina as the only state in the country obsessed with where trans people use the restroom through law."

The conservative NC Values Coalition, meanwhile, was urging its followers to contact lawmakers and tell them not to repeal House Bill 2, arguing that the existing law guarantees that men won't be allowed "into women's and little girl's bathrooms and showers."

"No NCAA basketball game, corporation, or entertainment concert is worth even one little girl being harmed or frightened in a bathroom," Tami Fitzgerald, executive director, wrote in an email. "She should not lose her privacy and dignity to a boy in a locker room."

The announcement of a compromise on Wednesday came after months of acrimony over the bill and a seeming inability to find middle ground after numerous efforts. Conservative legislators, citing safety concerns, have been worried about the idea of men using women's restrooms since the Charlotte city government, in February 2016, passed an ordinance that allowed transgender people to use the restroom of their choice. Charlotte officials repealed that ordinance in December as part of one of the efforts to broker a compromise in the state capital, but that effort failed dramatically during a special legislative session.

This week, a new flurry of action over House Bill 2 came as the N.C.A.A. warned the state that it could lose the opportunity to host championship sporting events through 2022. The league had already relocated championship tournament games that would have been played in North Carolina during this academic year, including the Division I men's basketball tournament.

The possibility of further punishment placed tremendous pressure on lawmakers in the basketball-obsessed state, a pressure exacerbated by the fact that the University of North Carolina men's basketball team has reached the N.C.A.A. tournament's Final Four and will be squaring off against the University of Oregon on Saturday night.

The Atlantic Coast Conference also moved its neutral-site championships out of North Carolina this year in response to House Bill 2, and the National Basketball Association moved its All-Star game to New Orleans from Charlotte.

Some local news outlets reported this week the N.C.A.A. had set a Thursday deadline for the state to address the bill. Officials at the association could not be reached for comment Wednesday. A league statement last week stated, "Absent any change in the law, our position remains the same regarding hosting current or future events in the state."

Some conservatives in the House said that it felt like the legislature was caving to pressure from th N.C.A.A., and lamented the fact. Mr. Jones said that two flags should now be flown outside the legislative building: that of "a certain intercollegiate athletic association" and "a white flag."

The Associated Press released an analysis this week that estimated that House Bill 2 would cost North Carolina more than $3.7 billion in lost business in the next 12 years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/us/north-carolina-senate-acts-to-repeal-restrictive-bathroom-law.html

[Jimmy]

It's very annoying that reporters are characterizing what happened in North Carolina today as a repeal.  It was more of a replace. 

It may be enough to gain the support of the NCAA, but LGBTQ and related groups are raising a ruckus and asking the NCAA to maintain their ban on events until all of the HB 2 is repealed, without exception.

[finehoe]

North Carolina's Bait-and-Switch on Transgender Restroom Law

Facing a deadline to do away with a law that turned North Carolina into a national pariah by denying the right of transgender people to use public restrooms of their choice, state lawmakers rashly settled on a terrible compromise.

On Thursday, they repealed the law in name but not in substance, hoping to assuage organizations and employers that have boycotted the state to protest its discriminatory law. The National Collegiate Athletic Association had given state politicians until Thursday to get rid of the law before it would resume holding championship games in the state.

ll those who have taken a principled stance against the law, known as H.B. 2, should stand firm. The law's revision would deprive North Carolinians of protection from discrimination for years, and retains the odious notion that transgender people are inherently dangerous.

"We can never compromise on fundamental civil rights," William Barber II, the president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said in a call with journalists Thursday morning. "It was never just a bathroom bill. It's a bill that discriminates against so many people in so many ways."

The original bill, which was signed into law in March 2016 by Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, was in retaliation to an ordinance the city of Charlotte approved weeks earlier barring discrimination against gays, lesbians and transgender people. Charlotte's measure established that transgender people had a right to use public restrooms that correspond with their gender identity. The state law mandated that transgender people use restrooms that matched the gender marker listed on their birth certificate, and barred localities from enacting laws to protect gays, lesbians and transgender people from discrimination.

It's mystifying that Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat whose narrow election in November was seen as something of a referendum on H.B. 2, would regard the amended law as a suitable compromise. The repeal law did away with the birth certificate requirement, which was unenforceable all along because it would have turned law enforcement officials into genital inspectors. But it bars schools and other government entities from adopting policies allowing transgender people to use the restroom of their choice. And it still prohibits anti-discrimination ordinances until 2020.

Mr. Cooper said the compromise with the Republican-controlled legislature was "not perfect," but he held out hope that the repeal would start to "repair our reputation." He and other Democrats who supported the compromise said they concluded that a modest step toward undoing the law was the best they could hope for while Republicans have veto-proof majorities in the legislature. That is misguided. The deal was struck days after The Associated Press reported that the backlash against the law would cost North Carolina at least $3.7 billion in business over 12 years.

Getting employers and organizations to steer business and jobs to North Carolina should require more than window dressing. State officials must address the underlying problem: a law that enshrines discrimination against minorities and perpetuates harmful stereotypes about transgender people. Until they do, business as usual will represent an endorsement of bigotry and intolerance.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/30/opinion/north-carolinas-bait-and-switch-on-transgender-restroom-law.html

[Tacachale]

Terrible compromise, but probably the only thing that would have gotten through in the current climate. North Carolina is a very weird place: largely progressive/moderate cities and college towns that are seeing huge growth largely from non-natives, surrounded by bright red rural areas and small towns that are more traditionally Southern in mentality. The college system is excellent, but have the college towns have the starkest town-vs.-gown divide of any place I've ever seen. It is inevitable that contention of this magnitude would come up there.