Obama Officials ‘Are Reviewing’ Mississippi Anti-Gay Law And May Cut Billions in Federal Funding

Like North Carolina, Mississippi’s New Sweeping Anti-LGBT Law May Cost the State a Fortune in Federal Funding

At least two federal agencies are currently investigating if language in new laws signed by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, and now, Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant, violates federal law, thus subjecting each of the states to a loss in billions of dollars in federal funding. The Dept. of Transportation, headed by North Carolina native Anthony Foxx, who also happens to have been a mayor of Charlotte, as the first to begin an investigation into the Tar Heel State’s new law. That was quickly followed by the Dept. of Education, and then the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development.

Now, MNBC’s Rachel Maddow reports that at least two of those agencies, the Dept. of Transportation and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) are looking into whether or not Mississippi’s anti-LGBT “religious freedom” law, signed this week by Gov. Phil Bryant, violates federal laws and Obama administration policy.

Friday night Maddow reported HUD told MSNBC they “are aware” of Mississippi’s law “and are reviewing it.” 

Maddow far too generously noted that “laws do have consequences including consequences that governors might not have imagined when they signed these things.”

In fact, as was widely reported, including by NCRM the week before Gov. Bryant signed Mississippi’s bill into law, federal agencies made clear they were investigating North Carolina’s law.

The U.S. Department of Education, which last year provided $4.3 billion to North Carolina, told The New York Times it was reviewing the anti-LGBT law “to determine any potential impact on the state’s federal education funding.” A Department spokesperson told the Times, “We will not hesitate to act if students’ civil rights are being violated.”

And Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx exactly one week before Gov. Bryant signed Mississippi’s anti-LGBT bill into law made clear in a public address that he was reviewing North Carolina’s law to see if it violated federal law and Obama administration policy.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory and Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant are not unaware of the consequences of their actions. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence is the perfect example of what happens when governors violate not only the will of their citizens and sign into law legislation that violates federal law and public morality. Lat year, Gov. Pence faced an international firestorm, one that harmed his state’s economy and his political future. 

The same is just beginning for these two governors, and sadly, for the citizens of both states, who can ill-afford an economic downturn, thanks to bad conservative policies.

 

Images of HUD, DOT via Wikimedia