Effort to repeal NC ‘bathroom bill’ fails
North Carolina lawmakers failed Wednesday to repeal a law regulating transgender people’s use of public restrooms, despite convening in a special legislative session for the express purpose of rescinding the controversial law.
The legislature adjourned Wednesday evening after a brutal day in which Republicans feuded over whether to fully or partially repeal the measure, and Democrats accused them of reneging on a pledge to eliminate completely the so-called “bathroom bill,” which requires people to use the public restroom that matches with the sex on their birth certificate regardless of their gender identity.
After a series of attempts to come to an agreement, the Senate voted down a bill to repeal the law and the House adjourned without acting. They are both scheduled to next convene in January.
Gay and transgender rights groups immediately condemned the outcome of the nine-hour session, in which they criticized Republicans for preserving the “hateful” legislation that had led to boycotts, cost the state millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue and prompted the NBA and the NCAA to move games.
“Today, the public trust has been betrayed once again. Lawmakers sent a clear message: North Carolina remains closed for business,” Chad Griffin, of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement.
Republicans, meanwhile, blamed Democrats, who rejected a version of the repeal that would have included a six-month moratorium on cities passing nondiscrimination ordinances to protect gay and transgender people. They also blamed the governorelect, Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, who had paved the way for repeal by negotiating an agreement with the city of Charlotte to pull back a nondiscrimination ordinance it had enacted earlier this year.
“Make no mistake: Roy Cooper and Senate Democrats killed the repeal” of the bill, Republican Senate Leader Phil Berger said. “Their action proves they only wanted a repeal in order to force radical social engineering and shared bathrooms across North Carolina, at the expense of our state’s families, our reputation and our economy.”
The special session came amid intense acrimony in the North Carolina political scene, as Republican lawmakers recently passed legislation aimed at stripping power from the Democratic governor-elect, who in turn has threatened a lawsuit.
A proposal Berger had introduced Wednesday would have repealed the bathroom bill. But its imposition of a temporary ban on any local government effort to “enact or amend an ordinance” regulating access to restrooms angered groups that had long opposed the bill, which, in addition to its bathroom provision, also reversed local ordinances expanding protections for LGBT people.