North Carolina lawmakers have sent a legislative replacement for its disastrous HB2 bill to the desk of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, who is expected to sign it into law. The new bill repeals HB2’s transphobic bathroom dictates but does absolutely nothing to protect LGBTQ people from discrimination and, to add insult to injury, prohibits any local nondiscrimination ordinances from being enacted until December 2020. A Lambda Legal attorney aptly called the effort a “fake repeal.”
Cooper—who won office last November almost solely due to his opposition to the GOP's “bathroom bill”—just presided over a deal that explicitly locks in discrimination against gay and transgender Americans for the foreseeable future. The Charlotte Observer Editorial Board has it exactly right:
Legislators and Gov. Roy Cooper hailed Thursday’s HB2 repeal bill as a compromise. In fact, it is nothing of the kind. It is a betrayal of the promises the governor made to the LGBT community and a doubling down on discrimination by Republican legislators who have backed it all along. [...]
This was the first real test of leadership for Gov. Cooper, a Democrat, and he failed spectacularly by inexplicably discarding his earlier promise not to accept any deal that left people vulnerable to discrimination. The new bill ensures that all gay people – not just transgender people seeking to relieve themselves without being harassed – are susceptible to unequal treatment for at least the next 3 ½ years.
HB2 was a Republican-written law, passed primarily by Republican supermajorities. It has been an embarrassment for North Carolina since the day it passed – so much so that even House and Senate Republican leaders eventually agreed it needed to be repealed. The onus is on them, not on Cooper and other Democrats, to make things right. Purely from a political strategy perspective, Democrats held the upper hand, not because they had the numbers but because they had public opinion on their side.
Heck of a job, Cooper. He will be serenaded tonight by the air horn brigade that was originally created for his predecessor.
“Unfortunately, it seems Gov. Cooper needs a loud reminder of what he was elected to do,” said AHO co-founder Tina Haver Currin in a statement.
The NCAA, which boycotted the state over HB2, has not yet issued a statement on the bill.