After North Carolina Democratic lawmakers filed an HB2 repeal bill Monday, the immediate question became whether it will even get a hearing in the GOP-led General Assembly. Colin Campbell reports:
Rep. Darren Jackson of Knightdale is the primary sponsor of House Bill 946. Jackson and his co-sponsors said they do not have any Republican support for their bill and haven’t talked with the chamber’s leaders about getting it a committee hearing this session.
“It is never too late to do the right thing,” Jackson said. “It is time for the governor and the General Assembly to make it clear that we are focused on creating jobs.”
Jackson anticipated other bills would be introduced that offer partial fixes to HB2, but he stressed that the entirety of the discriminatory law needed to be scrapped in order to stem the economic fallout.
But Republicans remain unmoved, seemingly perfectly happy to watch the economic tumult continue. State Senate Leader Phil Berger thumbed his nose at detractors last week, saying he would not "give in to the demands of multi-millionaire celebrities pushing a pet social agenda, liberal newspapers like the New York Times, [or] big corporations..." You get the idea—he's not budging no matter what kind of consequences the law has on the state.
In fact, GOP lawmakers are almost uniformly avoiding questions on the matter. A survey of North Carolina legislators conducted last week by the Associated Press along with seven other news outlets found that less than one-third of the state’s 168 legislators were willing to say whether they wanted to change the law or leave it intact.
One Republican representative who supports the law, William Brawley, gave a glimpse of the GOP's willingness to engage the topic, writing: "We read your questionnaire and believed it was a trap and I would not respond."
While 41 mostly Democratic lawmakers indicated they wanted to revisit HB2, Brawley’s response was par for the course for Republicans:
Eleven survey respondents said they weren't in favor of changing the law. Another 17 either declined to comment or offered an equivocal answer. The rest simply didn't answer their phones or return messages or emails.
Several sought to quickly get off the phone.
Reached at home, Rep. John M. Blust answered question No. 1 by saying: "I'm not looking at doing that right now."
"Can I put you down as a 'no'?" a reporter asked.
The Republican, who voted for the state law, said he had no more time to talk because he was mired in work on his campaign for U.S. Congress in North Carolina's 13th District.
Republican Rep. Josh Dobson, who also voted for the legislation, said: "I usually refer everything to the Speaker's office," then hung up before a reporter could ask a follow-up question.
Profiles in leadership abound.