UPDATE: The Charlotte City Council has now pulled consideration of this item from today’s meeting agenda, per the Raleigh News & Observer.
ORIGINAL POST: Charlotte’s City Council, under pressure from the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, might reportedly consider a symbolic vote to repeal its nondiscrimination ordinance during Monday’s 5 PM meeting. The vote is not officially scheduled but council members could ask for it under an agenda item in which members will discuss the economic impact of HB2, the law that prohibits transgender individuals from using the appropriate bathrooms, among other things.
Before getting to the reporting, it’s important to understand that repealing the city’s ordinance would have no practical impact other than emboldening anti-LGBT lawmakers and validating their hateful actions. Nonetheless, the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, which supposedly promotes business, is pressuring the city council to repeal its nondiscrimination ordinance based on the economic impact of HB2—which, you’ll recall, is not the Charlotte ordinance but rather the law that state legislators passed. So if council members voted for repeal, practically it would mean nothing because HB2 is the measure that wreaked havoc on the state and effectively erased Charlotte’s ordinance anyway. And at this point, it’s unclear that state lawmakers have agreed to any concessions regarding HB2—meaning the wrong public officials are being pressured to do the wrong thing with no clear outcome other than simply putting a target on Charlotte’s back. Certainly, no one would have to feel badly about cancelling business in Charlotte anymore.
Now to Steve Harrison’s reporting on the proposal:
Under the proposal, the Charlotte City Council would remove the ordinance from its books, even though House Bill 2 nullified almost all of it. In return, the legislature would modify some of HB2, the controversial law that, along with other provisions, requires people in government facilities to use the bathroom that matches their birth certificate. [MY NOTE: No specifics on what exactly would be modified.]
“Stand up to anti-LGBT bullies in Raleigh and the Chamber AND STAY STRONG FOR LGBT PEOPLE,” [a Human Rights Campaign] tweet Friday said.
A spokesman for the HRC on Sunday said the tweet intended to also label the Charlotte Chamber as an “anti-LGBT bully,” not just leaders in Raleigh.
The Charlotte Chamber declined to comment Sunday on the HRC criticism. But in an op-ed posted Sunday, Chamber President Bob Morgan said the City Council “should act to take the first step in a process we hope leads to reforms to HB2 that advance our city and state as places where discrimination is not tolerated – for anyone.” He said the council should take that step in response to “an overture” by the legislature.
In other words, the burden is on Charlotte to begin a process for which no exact outcome has even been detailed (or at least not one that I’ve found outlined anywhere). What the Charlotte chamber and the state chamber have both failed to acknowledge is that, since HB2 was the provision that started the domino effect of cancellations in the state, it’s HB2 that should be repealed. Both entities appear to be in the pocket of conservative lawmakers, who continue to use their power to try to intimidate businesses in the state out of criticizing HB2 rather than working to modify the law in any way that would minimize its fiscal impact.
It’s unclear whether the Charlotte City Council will call for a vote on repeal. But it certainly looks like they would have the votes to rescind the measure since two council members who voted to pass it originally—Vi Lyles and James Mitchell—have indicated they favor repeal, giving the effort the six votes necessary to succeed. Mayor Jennifer Roberts could, however, veto the repeal.
Some council members support a symbolic repeal. Others, including Mayor Jennifer Roberts, oppose it. Roberts has said that LGBT rights are “non-negotiable.”
Council members believe there are at least six votes in favor of a symbolic repeal: Republicans Ed Driggs and Kenny Smith, and Democrats Greg Phipps, Claire Fallon, Vi Lyles and James Mitchell.
Here’s what is clear: This is a fool’s errand, orchestrated by the same lawmakers who acted so hastily that they brought economic ruin on the state. Charlotte has been paying the price ever since and repealing its own ordinance—which no longer applies in the presence of HB2 anyway—is like taking orders from the very people who plundered your economy and left it for dead in the first place.
P.S. I’m not the only person who can’t figure out what Charlotte gets out of this other than a raw deal, via local Raleigh News & Observer reporter Craig Jarvis: