Repeal of Anti-LGBT Law Likely Won’t Even Be Debated in House
North Carolina Republican leadership has decided bills to repeal HB2 should die. This week Democrats in the House and Senate introduced bills to repeal the unconstitutional anti-LGBT law that has cost residents of the Tar Heel State over a billion dollars and thousands of jobs since Gov. Pat McCrory signed it last month.
But those bills may not even see the light of day, much less be given serious consideration.
The House bill to repeal HB2 has been assigned to the Judiciary Committee. Its Republican co-chairmen, Reps. Rob Bryan and Hugh Blackwell, are staunch supporters of HB2, which means the repeal bill likely will not even be debated in committee, much less ever see a vote by the full House.
Over in the Senate, powerful Sen. Tom Apodaca (photo) has assigned that chamber’s repeal bill first to the Senate Appropriations Committee. Apodaca, who is retiring, wants HB2 to be put before the voters in November as a constitutional amendment.
On the slight chance it gets a hearing and a vote in Appropriations, its next stop is his own Senate Ways and Means Committee.
The News & Observer’s Colin Campbell explains that committee “is something of an inside joke in the Senate.”
“The three-member Ways and Means Committee hasn’t held a meeting in years,” Campbell reports. “It’s widely known as the graveyard of the Senate – the place where Senate Rules Chairman Tom Apodaca sends legislation that he wants to kill.”
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Image: Screenshot via YouTube