H.B. 2 draws top billing at Duke forum on partisan divisions

A host of divisive issues confronts North Carolina, and easing political polarization is the goal of a new initiative at Duke University.

“It’s kind of dangerous territory for a democracy to have this level of distrust” in one another, and in established political institutions, said Fritz Mayer, director of Duke’s newly created Center for Political Leadership, Innovation and Service.

In hopes of kick-starting conversation to reduce the political temperature and promote cooperation, POLIS held a series of events during the presidential inaugural week titled “The Purple Project: Bridging Red and Blue America.”

“Is Purple Possible? Bridging the Partisan Divide in North Carolina” was the capstone event Jan. 20.

The session featured as panelists state Senate Minority Leader Dan Blue, D-Wake, state Sen. Tamara Barringer, R-Wake, former Cumberland County state representative and now executive director of the North Carolina Justice Center Rick Glazier, and John Hood, president of the John William Pope Foundation and board chairman of the John Locke Foundation, the parent organization of Carolina Journal.

Discussion topics ranged from alternatives to the present system of legislative redistricting to legislation passed by the Republican-majority General Assembly limiting the scope and powers of Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. An audience question-and-answer session followed.

House Bill 2, the so-called bathroom bill enacted in March 2016, figured prominently, and at times showed how deep partisanship can run even when there are some areas of agreement.

H.B. 2 restricts use of a restroom facility to a person’s corresponding birth anatomy. The General Assembly passed it in response to a Charlotte city ordinance. A movement to repeal the legislation failed last year, but has carried over to the 2017 legislative long session.

Blue said suspending traditional partisan rules that govern how legislation gets voted on could facilitate a repeal, and that process could have long-term applications on other sticky issues.

Repeal could occur “simply by having the respective caucuses release their leaders from having a unit vote,” Blue said.

A unit vote generally refers to a rule by which all members of a political subdivision, regardless of their position on an issue, are bound by the will of the majority of their group.

“If within the Republican caucus the members would say we don’t have to have a majority of the caucus for you to take this issue to the floor, then it could be fixed very quickly,” Blue said, but H.B. 2 repeal should be a standalone bill.

In the Dec. 21 session “that blew up,” Blue said, 16 Senate Democrats were ready to vote for repeal in Senate, and 16 Republican senators did vote for repeal. Only 26 votes were needed for passage, Blue said. However, when the vote was taken, no Democrats voted for repeal.

“The Senate has already voted on a clean repeal of H.B. 2, and it would have passed if Governor Cooper had not directed all Democrats to vote against it,” Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, told Carolina Journal after hearing of Blue’s proposal.

“I’ve explained to Governor Cooper that it will take compromise on both sides to move past the distraction of H.B. 2 — and that he and his far-left allies must stop trying to force women and young girls to share bathrooms and school locker rooms with men — and I’m encouraged that his response to those concerns is that he wants to work something out,” Berger said.

“Our office doesn’t have any comment on this matter because it involves caucus discussions,” Joseph Kyzer, a spokesman for House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, said of Blue’s recommendation.

“The concerns of privacy and the concerns of safety were really paramount” in drafting H.B. 2, Barringer said.

“We put something into law that is not working. It does not increase the penalties for assaults in bathrooms. It’s not enforceable, and it has hurt the brand of North Carolina,” Barringer said.

“We’ll never get it fixed” by pointing fingers of blame, she said.

“The real problem with House Bill 2 isn’t the bathroom issue,” Glazier said.

“It is the fact that it pre-empts the capacity of the state to engage in any anti-discrimination provisions for LGBT for public housing, in public employment, and in public accommodations,” Glazier said.

Some who voted to pass H.B. 2 “were shocked” to learn they had revoked decades of LGBT anti-discrimination law, Glazier said. The sponsors “weren’t shocked at all. I think that was the purpose.”

Glazier and Blue complained about the lack of transparency, and the speed with which it zipped through same-day passage and signing by Gov. Pat McCrory.

Hood agreed that the legislative approval process was handled poorly.

But he said neither Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts nor state Rep. Dan Bishop, R-Mecklenburg, both of whom he has known for decades, “was hatching some elaborate scheme to affect the gubernatorial election.” Both had “a heartfelt belief” their position was the right one.

Charlotte City Council debated its anti-discrimination ordinance for a year, and “they knew the legislature was going to repeal it when they passed it because they had been told that explicitly,” Hood said. They passed anyhow hoping it would “spark a full debate, and they would prevail.”

Bishop and others “truly believed that the bathroom provisions were abominable … it was highly unpopular, that it was unreasonable, and private entities couldn’t make decisions on their own private facilities,” Hood said. Concerns included a lack of protections for religious conscience or religious freedom in the anti-discrimination rules.

Hood, who worked privately to broker a solution as the issue attracted unfavorable national headlines, said Republicans were willing to talk it through in the summer and fall leading up to the Nov. 8 election. But Democrats resisted.

“In their minds the Republicans made their bed, let them sleep in it for a while,” Hood said.  Without identifying Cooper as the stumbling block, Hood said Democrats who had talked to Cooper’s team said Cooper would be unwilling to work on H.B. 2 repeal until after the election.*

Meanwhile, in recent weeks The Associated Press and eight newspapers have surveyed lawmakers about H.B. 2, which they characterized as “the issue receiving the most national and state attention.”

“Leaders in both parties have indicated that another attempt to repeal the law will be made during this year’s legislative session. Will you vote to repeal House Bill 2 in its entirety?” the survey asked.

*This article was edited after initial publication to clarify a statement made by John Hood.