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NC Republicans Break Promise to Fully Repeal Anti-LGBT HB2 Law
North Carolina Republicans filed a bill to repeal HB2 after many hours of closed door caucuses today. If it’s any surprise, they didn’t hold up their end of the bargain.
The bill they’ve filed (SB4) does repeal HB2, including its restrictions mandating what bathrooms transgender people may use. However, it also creates a “Six-Month Cooling-Off Period,” in which no municipality in the state may pass any laws related to employment or public accommodations, specifically noting “access to restrooms, showers, or changing facilities.”
The Charlotte City Council had agreed to a dark bargain this week, in which they repealed their LGBT nondiscrimination protections ordinance in exchange for state lawmakers repealing HB2. Governor-elect Roy Cooper brokered this agreement, proclaiming that the legislature would “repeal HB2 in full.”
It’s possible members of the Council assumed that they could repass their LGBT protections as soon as lawmakers held up their end of the bargain. But now, they will have to wait six months before they can act.
Incoming Governor Roy Cooper is now telling Democrats not to support the bill, and Republicans are attacking back, accusing Cooper of political manipulation.
Dallas Woodhouse, the Executive Director of the North Carolina Republican Party, released a statement on Facebook:
The National Center for Transgender Equality is pissed:
NCTE Executive Director Mara Keisling said:
The North Carolina General Assembly is a national disgrace.
In March, North Carolina lawmakers passed HB2. Last week, they made a shocking move to wrest power from Governor-elect Roy Cooper before he even took office. Today, they claimed they would repeal HB 2. As we have come to expect from these dishonest and underhanded extremist lawmakers, however, they are not repealing it in full. The repeal bill includes a portion that bans cities in North Carolina from passing their own nondiscrimination laws for six months.
This is unacceptable. The legislature’s actions today have proven that the people of North Carolina—particularly transgender North Carolinians—cannot have any faith in their shameless lawmakers.
We continue to stand with the people of North Carolina, particularly the transgender people who have been harmed by HB2 and their own lawmakers’ actions, and we will continue to fight shoulder-to-shoulder with them until this shameful legislation is repealed in its entirety.
Don’t be fooled: this is not full repeal of #HB2, doubles-down on discrimination, and makes clear that NC is still closed for business. t.co/mNBKSL7Y9a
— Chad Griffin (@ChadHGriffin) December 21, 2016
If 6-month moratorium becomes law, #LGBT North Carolinians wake up tmrow under same discriminatory regime of #HB2. #RepealHB2 in full #NCGA.
— ACLU-North Carolina (@ACLU_NC) December 21, 2016
More as it develops…
The post NC Republicans Break Promise to Fully Repeal Anti-LGBT HB2 Law appeared first on Towleroad.
NC Republicans Break Promise to Fully Repeal Anti-LGBT HB2 Law
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