North Carolina lawmakers refuse to repeal controversial bathroom bill
The North Carolina state Senate has voted against a legislation that would repeal the controversial bathroom bill during a special legislative session called by Gov. Pat McCrory on Wednesday.
The bathroom bill, also known as HB2, requires people to use public bathrooms that correspond to their biological sex. The law was passed in response to a Charlotte city non-discrimination ordinance that allowed transgender people to use bathrooms according to their gender identity.
On Monday, the Charlotte City Council voted to rescind the ordinance in exchange for a special session by the legislature to repeal HB2.
According to the Charlotte Observer, Republicans questioned the council why the entire ordinance was not rescinded.
The council members did remove part of the ordinance that dealt with transgender people being allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity. However, some parts of the ordinance were left intact.
The ordinance still prohibited the city from hiring contractors who were found to have discriminated against a subcontractor based on an employee's race, religion, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
On Wednesday, the executive director of the North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement accusing Democrats in Charlotte of lying "directly to the people."
"The HB2 blood is now stain soaked on their hands and theirs alone. What a dishonest, disgraceful shame by Roy Cooper and Charlotte Democrats," the statement read, according to NPR.
Charlotte City Attorney Bob Hagemann denied the allegations and said that the ordinance has been fully repealed. The city council called for an emergency session on Wednesday to "re-repeal" the anti-discrimination ordinance.
Some Republican lawmakers are concerned that other municipalities could enact similar anti-discrimination ordinance once HB2 is gone.
Republican Sen. Phil Berger called for separate votes on a straight repeal on HB2, and he proposed a "cooling off" period that would delay further local public accommodation laws until the state General Assembly comes up with a long-term solution.
Democrats would not agree with Berger's proposal. "This wasn't the deal," said Democratic Sen. Jeff Jackson, according to World Magazine. "This bill breaks this deal. Charlotte would have not repealed its ordinance if this was the deal," Jackson went on to say.
Berger castigated Democratic senators for reneging on their promise to repeal the bill and accused them of changing their votes after Governor-elect Roy Cooper told them to vote no.
"Make no mistake: Roy Cooper and Senate Democrats killed the repeal of HB2, abandoning Roy Cooper's commitment to avoid divisive social issues by shooting down a temporary cooling off period on ordinances like the one that got us into this mess last March," said Berger.
"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," he added.