NC GOP Lawmaker Who Wrote Anti-LGBT Bill Blames Charlotte Mayor For PayPal Canceling 400 New Jobs

PayPal CEO Clearly Stated Decision to Cancel Expansion Was ‘A Result’ of HB2, So Who’s Not Telling the Truth?

Republican State Representative Dan Bishop says Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, and not his anti-LGBT bill, is to blame for PayPal’s decision to cancel a planned $3.6 million expansion in North Carolina that would have created 400 new jobs. 

Bishop is the lead sponsor and author of HB2, the anti-LGBT bill that voids all local LGBT nondiscrimination ordinances in North Carolina and removes local power over minimum wage and employment discrimination laws – handing control over to state lawmakers. On Tuesday, he told the News & Observer PayPal’s decision to cancel their planned expansion was “not about HB2.”

“It is instead about a frenzy that the mayor and her allies on City Council have whipped up,” Rep. Bishop told the newspaper. “I think she might consider that she stop calling in airstrikes on her own position.”

Rep. Bishop is lying, plain and simple. And that’s easily proven. As NCRM reported Tuesday, PayPal CEO and President Dan Schulman on PayPal’s website wrote that HB2 “perpetuates discrimination and it violates the values and principles that are at the core of PayPal’s mission and culture. As a result, PayPal will not move forward with our planned expansion into Charlotte.”

Schulman clearly wanted there to be no question about his decision or about the reasons for it.

“Our decision is a clear and unambiguous one,” he wrote.

It really cannot be any clearer than that. There’s no room for interpretation. Schulman was 100 percent clear and specific. Someone’s lying, and it’s either the CEO who made the decision, or the politician who authored the unconstitutional bill.

Given Rep. Bishop’s performance in an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd on March 25, it’s apparent he’s comfortable twisting truth and spreading falsehoods, especially about HB2.

But Bishop isn’t the only one playing fast and loose with the truth. The News & Observer also quoted a joint statement by top North Carolina Republican state lawmakers.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore called it “a radical bathroom policy” by the Democratic mayor and City Council.

“The governor warned her the legislature would take immediate action to protect North Carolina families,” they said in a joint statement. “If Jennifer Roberts, (state Attorney General) Roy Cooper and the far-left Political Correctness Mob she’s unleashed really care about the economic future of her city, they’ll … start telling the truth about this commonsense bathroom safety law.”

Christopher Sgro, Executive Director of Equality North Carolina told The New Civil Rights Movement these comments “absurd.”

“Statements from Representative Dan Bishop, Senator Berger, and other extremist legislators claiming that fault for the backlash to House Bill 2 lies with Charlotte are absurd,” Sgro told NCRM via email today. “These are the same legislators who manufactured a crisis, wasted $42,000 of taxpayer money to stage a political stunt, and rammed through negligent legislation in under 12 hours without a second thought to consequences.”

“Charlotte spent almost a year crafting and considering a non-discrimination ordinance which mirrors those in 100+ other cities across the nation,” Scro continued, calling their efforts “a best practice,” and the North Carolina General Assembly’s “a worst possible practice.”

“It is not the fault of Charlotte’s leaders that Mr. Bishop and a few others did not carefully consider their actions. What Bishop and Berger are claiming is akin to a child breaking the cookie jar and blaming it on the dog. The loss of Paypal and potential loss of many, many other businesses is squarely on the backs of the legislature and Governor McCrory. They’ve made a mess of North Carolina, and they must fix it in the short session of the legislature by repealing HB2,” Sgro concluded.

NCRM Wednesday morning emailed Rep. Bishop, offering him the opportunity to change or clarify his statement. NCRM did not receive a response by the time this article was published.

 

Image: Screenshot via Dan Bishop/YouTube