HB2 'Bathroom Bill' Update: NC Lawmakers Send Repeal Law To Governor's Desk

UPDATE: North Carolina's General Assembly has passed the HB2 repeal proposal, sending the measure to Gov. Roy Cooper's desk for signature. House Bill 142 passed the Senate 32-16 and the House 70-48, with bipartisan support. The NCAA has not yet weighed in on the effort.

CHARLOTTE, NC — Bowing to intense political and economic pressure, North Carolina’s lawmakers say they have reached a deal to repeal HB2, the controversial “bathroom bill” law.

The state’s Senate is expected to vote on the proposal in a 9:15 a.m. session Thursday, to be followed by the House, according to The News & Observer. As of Wednesday evening, it was still unclear if the compromise would be sufficient to satisfy the NCAA and other businesses that have boycotted the state in protest of the year-old HB2 law, which denies anti-discrimination protections based upon sexual orientation or gender identity.

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Earlier in the week, the NCAA issued an ultimatum to the state, saying it had 48 hours to repeal the discriminatory legislation or face exclusion from its championship game calendar through at least 2022.

The latest proposal, according to the newspaper, would:

• Repeal HB2

Will this proposal be enough to lure businesses and the NCAA back to the state?

The four-year moratorium that would shelve any prospect of expanding anti-discrimination protections on local levels has already drawn swift criticism from civil liberty advocates and some in the business community.

While the NCAA’s timeline proved to be potent enough to spur state lawmakers into action, advocacy groups say the result has been a “shameful” slapdash proposal that continues to use rights of the LGBT community “as a bargaining chip.”

“One year after HB2 was introduced and signed into law in just 12 hours, it is shameful that legislative leaders and North Carolina’s governor are once again rushing through a discriminatory anti-LGBT measure without proper vetting or an opportunity for public input,” said Sarah Gillooly, policy director for the ACLU of North Carolina.

The proposed repeal keeps would continue to target transgender people, she said.

“If passed this proposal will box LGBTQ people out of local nondiscrimination protections in a state without statewide protections,” Human Rights Commission President Chad Griffin said on Twitter Wednesday night.

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