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North Carolina Rebuffs Transgender Bathroom Law Repeal

North Carolina Rebuffs Transgender Bathroom Law Repeal

RALEIGH, N.C. (Reuters) – North Carolina’s Republican-controlled legislature on Wednesday rejected a bid to repeal a state law restricting bathroom access for transgender people, which has drawn months of protests and boycotts by opponents decrying the measure as discriminatory.

A one-day special legislative session ended abruptly after the state Senate voted against abolishing a law that has made North Carolina the latest U.S. battleground over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights.

The repeal legislation was rejected 32-16, leaving the bathroom restrictions in place statewide. The rejection followed Republican-led political maneuvering that tried repeal to a second provision that would have temporarily banned cities from affirming transgender bathroom rights.

Democratic Senator Jeff Jackson said the repeal effort was defeated because Republicans reneged on their deal to bring the measure to a floor vote with no strings attached.

“They got here with strings attached so it failed,” Jackson said. The moratorium on municipal bathroom regulations, described by Jackson as a “poison pill,” withered Democratic support, and in the end all 16 Senate Democrats joined 16 Republicans in voting against repeal. Another 16 Republicans voted for it.

The Senate then adjourned without acting on the temporary municipal ban. The state’s House of Representatives already had called it quits.

Democratic Governor-elect Roy Cooper accused Republican leaders of back-peddling on an agreement ironed out in lengthy negotiations. He said both chambers had the votes for a full repeal, but divisions within the Republican Party killed it.

“The Republican legislative leaders have broken their word to me, and they have broken their trust with the people of North Carolina,” he said.

Senate Republican leader Phil Berger earlier defended the proposal to link repeal with temporary municipal restrictions as a “good-faith” effort to reach a compromise, citing “the passion and disagreement surrounding this issue.”

BACKLASH OVER BATHROOM RESTRICTIONS

Earlier in the week, outgoing Republican Governor Pat McCrory had called the special session to consider scrapping the law, which passed in March and made North Carolina the first state to bar transgender people from using public restrooms that match their gender identity.

Supporters of the statute, known as House Bill 2 (HB 2), have cited traditional values and a need for public safety, while opponents called it mean-spirited, unnecessary and a violation of civil liberties.

The national backlash was swift and fierce, leading to boycotts that have been blamed for millions of dollars in economic losses for the state as events, such as business conferences and the National Basketball Association’s 2017 All-Star Game, were moved out of North Carolina.

The pushback contributed to McCrory’s razor-thin defeat in a fall re-election bid against Cooper, an opponent of the law. On Monday, Cooper had said he reached a deal with state Republicans to do away with the law.

HB 2 was enacted largely in response to a local measure in Charlotte that protected the rights of transgender people to use public bathrooms of their choice.

The Charlotte City Council on Monday repealed its ordinance as a prelude to the state repealing HB 2.

Civil liberties and LGBT rights groups condemned the outcome, accusing the legislature of breaking its promise to do away with HB 2.

“It is a shame that North Carolina’s General Assembly is refusing to clean up the mess they made,” said James Esseks, an American Civil Liberties Union executive.

The North Carolina Values Coalition hailed the legislature for upholding the law and refusing to give in to “demands of greedy businesses, immoral sports organizations or angry mobs.”

(Writing by Letitia Stein, Daniel Trotta and Steve Gorman, additional reporting by David Ingram; editing by Tom Brown, G Crosse and Lisa Shumaker)

IMAGE: Opponents of North Carolina’s HB2 law limiting bathroom access for transgender people protest in the gallery above the state’s House of Representatives chamber as the legislature considers repealing the controversial law in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S. on December 21, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

Does Thom Tillis Have A Problem With Women?

Does Thom Tillis Have A Problem With Women?

North Carolina Senate candidate Thom Tillis (R) has already alienated minority voters this week – and there’s reason to believe that women may be next.

Following a budget dispute last week, Tills said that North Carolina state Rep. Susi Hamilton’s (D) criticisms of him were “born out of emotions,” in an interview with the StarNews.

Hamilton had said that the North Carolina film community was “double-crossed” by Tillis, the House Speaker, after a budget amendment to continue talks on film incentives was defeated. Hamilton claims that Tillis’s staff worked behind the scenes to make sure the amendment was defeated.

Tillis denied these claims, and launched the charged criticism at Hamilton. “I actively worked to prevent that from happening,” he said. “I think her comments and activity are the single greatest threat to progress.”

Hamilton responded, “Do I seem emotional? Any more than usual? My comments were born out of fact.”

Tillis already has women’s groups working against him in North Carolina. EMILY’s List stated in a press release that it was launching its WOMEN VOTE! campaign, which will spend $3 million in the state to support incumbent Democratic senator Kay Hagan. Planned Parenthood also plans on spending $3 million to get out the vote and mobilize women.

WOMEN VOTE!’s first ad features a pregnant teacher who’s struggling to pay for classroom supplies because of education cuts. It claims that Tillis cut the education budget by $500 million (The Washington Post‘s fact checker, however, points out that only $117 million of these cuts came in primary education in 2013-2014, amounting to only a net 1.5 percent decrease in the K-12 education budget).

EMILY’s List National Press Secretary Marcy Stech told the Post that the group is focused on North Carolina due to Tillis’ “extreme” record.

“North Carolina is a state that will hinge on women… voters who know that Kay Hagan has been a champion for women and families,” she said. “From opposing minimum wage, blocking equal pay for women and restricting women’s access to healthcare, Thom Tillis and his ‘divide and conquer’ record of extremism [is] far too out of touch for North Carolina.”

The Tillis campaign dismissed these complaints, offering the typical Republican response that the war on women doesn’t exist and isn’t actually a concern for voters.

“The left has been talking about a ‘war on women’ for a couple of cycles now,” Jordan Shaw, Tillis’ campaign manager, told the Post. “It’s designed for the media and not grounded in reality and it’s based on scare tactics.”

The campaign is attempting to reach out to women through its “Women for Tillis” coalition. But he’s going to have to do a lot more to mobilize the women’s vote.

The latest PPP poll shows that only 29 percent of women support Tillis, while 39 percent prefer Hagan. The two candidates are virtually tied with male voters, as they each have 39 percent of the vote. Overall, the poll shows Hagan with a 5-point lead, though most other polls show them virtually tied.

The full EMILY’s List ad attacking Thom Tillis can be seen below.

Photo: North Carolina National Guard via Flickr

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GOP Senate Candidate Thom Tillis Has Had A Rough 24 Hours

GOP Senate Candidate Thom Tillis Has Had A Rough 24 Hours

The North Carolina election suddenly isn’t looking so good for state House Speaker Thom Tillis (R-NC), the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate. He’s trailing incumbent Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) by 5 points, according to PPP’s latest poll, released on Tuesday. This represents Hagan’s largest lead in any public poll since September (though most other surveys show the race as a virtual tie).

Tillis also managed to possibly alienate minority voters in his state, when Talking Points Memo uncovered a 2012 interview with Carolina Business Review host Chris William, in which Tillis said that the African-American and Hispanic population of North Carolina were not the “traditional population of North Carolina.” William had asked Tillis why he thought the Hispanic vote had shifted from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party. Tillis responded, “There’s a number of things that our party stands for that they embrace. I think we have to do a better job of communicating it.”

He went on to say, “The traditional population of North Carolina and the United States is more or less stable,” as opposed to the growing African-American and Hispanic populations, which he thinks Republicans need to reach out to in the future.

Tillis campaign communications director Daniel Keylin denied the apparent racial implications of his remarks, telling Talking Points Memo, “‘Traditional’ North Carolinians refers to North Carolinians who have been here for a few generations.”

Offensiveness aside, Tillis’ claim that the “traditional” white population is stable, while the minority population is growing, isn’t entirely accurate. The percentage of people identifying as “black or African-American alone” in North Carolina actually decreased from 21.59 percent of the total population in 2000 to 21.48 percent in 2010, according census numbers. The percentage of people identifying as “white alone” in the state decreased from 72.11 percent in 2000 to 68.47 percent in 2010. But the raw number of white people in the state has actually increased, from 5,804,653 people in 2000 to 6,528,950 in 2010. The number of “persons of Hispanic or Latino origin” in North Carolina did increase from 4.71 percent in 2000 to 8.39 percent in 2010.

Chris Hayden, Sen. Hagan’s campaign spokesman, responded to the remarks on Tuesday.

“Once again Thom Tillis is separating, dividing and conquering North Carolinians,” he said.

Tillis is already losing the minority vote in North Carolina. The PPP poll shows that only 6 percent of African-American voters support him, while 67 percent are behind Hagan; 41 percent of white voters back Tillis, vs. 32 percent for Hagan. For voters who identify as “other” in the poll, 37 percent support Tillis and 34 percent prefer Hagan.

Overall, Hagan has 39 percent of voter support, while Tillis only has 34 percent. According to the PPP, Hagan’s lead likely expanded because the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly is currently in session, and only 18 percent of voters approve of the job that the General Assembly is doing.

Even with Hagan’s lead, she still has a tough race to run. She still has a negative favorability rating (42 percent of voters approve of her while 46 percent disapprove), and voters disapprove of President Obama as well (41 percent approve; 53 percent disapprove). Hagan will have to distance herself from the president to maintain her lead and fight off attacks such as the Tillis campaign’s new website — penpalkay.com –which brands Hagan as “a rubber-stamp for President Obama’s failed policies.”

Photo: North Carolina National Guard via Flickr

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