Six months out from the presidential election and politics have blown up in our collective face. A reality star who throws out childish insults and calls people silly names is the Republican nominee for president. A debate over who can use the bathroom where has turned the nation’s attention to North Carolina again.
Now, Pat McCrory and the Republican legislature are betting that they can gain the upper hand in the debate over House Bill 2 by making it a states’ rights issue. They’re suing the federal government, arguing that it’s overreaching in telling North Carolina that House Bill 2 is a discriminatory measure. McCrory says that the Obama administration is reinterpreting the Civil Rights Act to broaden its power and that Congress should take up the legislation.
The Obama administration is counter suing North Carolina, claiming that the Justice Department position is just staying consistent with recent decisions concerning transgender people. A ruling last month by a federal court in Virginia upheld a decision by the Department of Education that says, “a school generally must treat transgender students consistent with their gender identity.” According the News & Observer, “the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration both have taken stances similar to the federal Education Department.”
US Attorney General Loretta Lynch yesterday articulated the values of those who oppose House Bill 2 in an eloquent and powerful speech. “Let us not act out of fear and misunderstanding, but out of the values of inclusion, diversity and regard for all that make our country great,” she said. “This country was founded on a promise of equal rights for all, and we have always managed to move closer to that promise, little by little, one day at a time. It may not be easy – but we’ll get there together.”
This battle may define North Carolina’s politics this year, but we have a summer to find out for sure. Republicans hope that it can soften the blow of a Trump nomination and keep social conservatives engaged. Democrats hope that it can ignite the base of young people who carried Barack Obama to victory in 2008. My guess is that the voters in the middle for whom discrimination and transgender rights are just abstract concepts tire of the whole debate long before November. What they do could have as much impact on the election as anything anybody is saying today.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Pat McCrory = George Wallace
County and City I meant to say
Very funny that the governor is claiming state rights when that very same bill takes the rights of county and state government away
“Loretta Lynch yesterday articulated the values of those who oppose House Bill 2 in an eloquent and powerful speech”
Which has ZERO basis in the law OR in the Constitution! Comparing a “woman”‘s demand to use the women’s room with Jim Crow?! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
There are at least 9 court opinions since 1975 which held Title VII and Title IX DO NOT apply to gender identity, the latest being Johnston v. University of Pittsburgh (2015). Funny how the DOJ’s complaint omits that.
Moreover, Charlotte’s ordinance violates the state’s constitution. Do I REALLY need to mention that?
I suggest you re-think your admiration of Ms. Lynch, and that you both look up “Chad Severance-Turner” and Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
Checked ’em all, Lisa Davis.
First, the Pittsburgh U case was settled out of court with the university agreeing to develop standards and policies whereby transgendered people can use the bathroom (and in future, perhaps, the locker room) of their chosen gender identity. The settlement was considered a victory for progressive views on trans life.
Second, earlier court opinions (especially from forty years ago) are moot in light of the most recent, from April 2016, in which (from the Washington Post):
“A federal appeals court in Richmond has ruled that a transgender high school student who was born as a female can sue his school board on discrimination grounds because it banned him from the boys’ bathroom.
“In backing high school junior Gavin Grimm, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit deferred to the U.S. Education Department’s position that transgender students should have access to the bathrooms that match their gender identities rather than being forced to use bathrooms that match their biological sex. The department has said that requiring transgender students to use a bathroom that corresponds with their biological sex amounts to a violation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination at schools that receive federal funding.”
Fourth Circuit said the administration has the right to interpret Title IX and Title VII as covering transgendered people, and Fourth Circuit governs NC law, unless overruled by the Supreme Court.
Chad Severance-Turner went after teenage boys and young men while he was a youth pastor, just like all the Catholic priests who have done so for decades. What does that have to do with going to the bathroom? He’s not a transgendered person, nor (as far as anyone knows) a bathroom peeper or molester. And certainly not of women and girls Would Mr. S-T go into a ladies’ bathroom to try to fondle young men? Doubtful. But of course if you simply are trying to lump together gay people, closeted ministers seducing their teen charges, transgendered people, rapists, and peeping toms and molesters — oh, that IS what you’re doing. Sorry. But it does remind me of the days when your ilk kept black folks from drinking from the white drinking fountain or washing their clothes in the same laundromat machines lest something rub off on you pure white Caucasians (I’m one, too).
As for the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, they require that withholding funding (or the threat of same) be used as an incentive rather than punitively. Which is just what Ms. Lynch and Ms. Gupta are doing: suggesting that the loss of federal education funds should be incentive enough to repudiate HB-2.
BTW, any state’s constitution is subject to the federal Constitution and the rulings of the Supreme Court. That was decided 200 years ago. It’s called Federal Supremacy, and it was fought out again in 1861-1865. Federal Supremacy won; states rights lost.
Got it, Ms. Davis?
Excellent post: thanks for presenting actual facts instead of imaginary horror stories. I found out recently that I’m not actually a “pure white Caucasian” (well, the “pure” part was always questionable, but apparently the “white” part isn’t 100% either). The fact is that humans are a lot more varied and variable than we used to think; and given that fact, it seems obvious that we need to recognize reality and cut other human beings a little slack instead of trying to squeeze them all into just one or two versions of homo sapiens. Even if you believe that “God made man in his own image”, it’s pretty obvious that wasn’t meant to be taken literally in the sense of a world of cookie-cutter duplicates. Cookies and flowers can have variations–why should we assume that human beings aren’t equally variable and equally worthy of having their differences acknowledged and respected?
I admire your scholarship and your patience.
Good job.
Trump is alienating suburban women who make up a significant portion of “the voters in the middle.” His brash personality will gain far more media attention this bill, which discriminates against transgender people. And yes, Thom, we should be preparing for a blue wave.
Gov. Pat McCrory and the NCGA are heading down a well-travelled road. The best they can expect is the imposture will buy the state a little more time. With time running out on federal funding, the Republicans have gambled on a pretense that the state’s lawyers don’t understand the prevailing law and precedents. Using willful ignorance as a weapon will not change the inevitable outcome, but the expenditure of large sums on clever legal briefs might help the state avoid the loss the billions of dollars hanging in the balance. It won’t work, but it might not be a catastrophe. The GOP is on the wrong side of Pascal’s wager. They have bet everything on a gambit which will earn us nothing if they are right. If they are wrong, the consequences are unthinkable.