UPDATED: NC GOP Pushing Through Bill To Ban Local Municipalities From Enacting LGBT Protections

Republicans in North Carolina are waging a stealth attack on their minority constituents in an eleventh hour attempt to constrict civil liberties. 

Late Monday night Republicans in North Carolina quietly attached an amendment to a bill on sex trafficking and educational qualifications of counselors. That amendment, like so-called “commerce” bills in West Virginia and Arkansas, would ban local towns and cities from enacting a wide swath of legislation focused on a variety of social justice issues, including minimum wages, protections for LGBT citizens, and housing issues.

Lawmakers are expected to vote on that legislation tonight, or possibly tomorrow at the latest.

SB 279, as North Carolina Policy Watch’s Progressive Pulse notes, “could allow local landlords to deny housing to veterans and seniors, permit local businesses to discriminate against their customers based on their sexual orientation, and prohibit city and county governments from passing living wage and paid sick ordinances to boost their local economies.”

“One shocking provision may even stop local governments from requiring landlords to provide heating, air, and ventilation in their properties,” the Progressive Pulse observes.

“No county shall have the authority to regulate…the employment practices of nongovernmental businesses in the jurisdiction of the county,” the text reads. It also bans the right of localities to “mandate or prohibit the provision of goods, services, or accommodation to any member of the public by nongovernmental businesses in the county.”

Labeling the Republican lawmakers’ attempt a “sneak attack,” the Human Rights Campaign “blasted anti-LGBT legislation that could be rammed through the North Carolina Assembly and signed into law today.”

“The legislation, which would also override existing municipal non-discrimination ordinances, could move to the Senate and the Governor’s desk as soon as today,” HRC adds.

An article in the News & Observer puts the basics of the legislation into context in the title: “Legislature moves to take away local government authority.”

“This came as a surprise to us,” Sarah Preston, executive director of ACLU of North Carolina, told BuzzFeed. “Before the conference committee met last night, we had no idea this was being considered.”

Some responses via Twitter:

UPDATE I: 7:07 PM EDT –
An initial vote on the amendment has failed to pass it to the full House, but it can be voted on again tonight, or tomorrow:

 

This is a breaking news story and will be updated. 

 

Image by Chris Sgro via Twitter