RALEIGH, N.C. _ The North Carolina General Assembly on Thursday approved a compromise bill that repeals House Bill 2 but restricts anti-discrimination ordinances in cities and counties.
The bill now goes to the governor for his signature.
Opposition and support for the bill did not fall along party lines in the 32-16 Senate vote. Several Democrats banded together to oppose it; they included Sen. Jay Chaudhuri of Raleigh, Sen. Mike Woodard of Durham, Sen. Floyd McKissick of Durham, and Sen. Valerie Foushee of Hillsborough. Other opponents included Sen. Jeff Jackson of Charlotte and Sen. Don Davis of Greenville.
In the House, the bill passed 70-48.
Senate Democratic Leader Dan Blue of Raleigh and Senate leader Phil Berger, a Republican, asked the Senate to approve the compromise. House Democratic Leader Darren Jackson of Knightdale did the same in the House.
"It is a step forward from this terrible piece of legislation that was passed in March of 2016," Jackson said on the House floor.
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement overnight that he supported the compromise.
Whether the repeal and attached provisions will be sufficient to put the state back in contention to host NCAA sports championships remains to be seen.
"This is a significant compromise from all sides on an issue that has been discussed and discussed and discussed in North Carolina for a long period of time," Berger told the Senate Rules Committee earlier Thursday. "It is something that I think satisfies some people, dissatisfies some people, but it's a good thing for North Carolina."
Blue said many Democrats oppose imposing a moratorium on local nondiscrimination ordinances, but he said the repeal takes the state back to what it had before HB2 was enacted in March 2016. Speaking on the Senate floor, Blue said the bill "resets the conversation" about new definitions of discrimination.
"I think this will address issues of who we are, how inclusive we are and whether everyone is valued," Blue said.
HB2 forbids local anti-discrimination protections for LGBT people and requires people in government facilities to use bathrooms that match the gender on their birth certificates.
Opponents of HB2 who say the state LGBT law is discriminatory rallied opposition to the compromise, as did those who think the year-old law should remain in place to protect girls and women from sex offenders who might take advantage of access to public restrooms based on gender identity instead of sex at birth.
There are three provisions in the new bill: Repeal of HB2, leaving regulation of multiple occupancy restrooms, showers or changing facilities to the state, and a moratorium on local ordinances regulating public accommodations or private employment practices until Dec. 1, 2020.
The compromise was reached Wednesday night and released overnight, with the blessings of Cooper, Berger and Republican House Speaker Tim Moore.
Sen. Dan Bishop, a Mecklenburg Republican and key author of HB2, was the only senator to speak on the floor against the new bill. "This bill is at best a punt, at worst it is a betrayal of principle," Bishop said.
Ned Curran, a former chairman of the Charlotte Chamber and former chairman of the state Board of Transportation under Gov. Pat McCrory, asked the Senate Rules Committee to pass the bill.
"This is a bill that will benefit the 10 million people of North Carolina and the 100 counties and will make North Carolina a better place than it is today," said Curran, who has been involved in recent negotiations to reach a compromise.
Sen. Ralph Hise, a Republican from Spruce Pine, said after the committee meeting that he opposed the bill and didn't appreciate economic pressure from sports leagues and businesses that have protested HB2 for a year.
"Basketball is important to North Carolina, nobody is going to deny that," Hise said. "But we've been threatened as a state and we took the coward's act and we're backing down. I can't stand for that."
Lawmakers sped the bill through the Legislature by gutting an unrelated bill, House Bill 142, which had already been passed in the House. Once the Senate voted to approve it, the bill was able to go directly to the House for a floor vote.
In the House, several of the most conservative Republicans unsuccessfully tried to postpone consideration of the bill until next week. Other Republicans said they weren't willing to lose the protections of HB2, and expressed resentment that the NCAA had pressured the state.
A contingent of Democrats opposed it because they said the bill doesn't go far enough in eliminating discrimination, casting it in terms of the history of civil rights in the United States. The two openly LGBT lawmakers, Rep. Cecil Brockman of High Point and Rep. Deb Butler of Wilmington, were among the opponents.
"We don't want special rights," Brockman said. "We just want to be treated equally and to be left alone, and that's it."
"The times in life are rare when you have an opportunity to truly stand for justice," Butler said. "This is one of those days. ... This is so much bigger than basketball. The people of North Carolina want us to repeal HB2. We would rather suffer under HB2 than to have this body one more time deny us the full and unfettered protections of the law."
As the House debate wore on, members grew emotional, some members occasionally fighting back tears.
Rep. Jeff Collins of Rocky Mount said the hard-edged politics on both sides of the issue have been by far the worst he has seen in his six years in office. "This is the saddest day of my service in the House in North Carolina," he said.
Rep. Yvonne Lewis Holly of Wake County said she thought about walking out to avoid voting, because she still wasn't sure how she would vote and was anguished over the decision. She ended up voting yes.
Equality N.C. Executive Director Chris Sgro said there will be consequences for Democrats in the next elections for failing to repeal HB2 without strings attached. He said he was surprised that Cooper agreed to support the bill.
"This is not leadership, Gov. Cooper," Sgro said.
The N.C. Values Coalition was also dissatisfied with the outcome.
"These chambers were filled today with men and women who have been under a full-court press by the NCAA and the business community for months, and today, the leaders of our state have let the people of North Carolina down," Tami Fitzgerald, the executive director, said in a statement. "The truth remains, no basketball game, corporation, or entertainment event is worth even one little girl losing her privacy and dignity to a boy in the locker room, or being harmed or frightened in a bathroom. Today each member cast a vote based on what they believed was in the best interest of their constituents and North Carolina."
The Human Rights Campaign released this statement by its president, Chad Griffin:
"After more than a year of inaction, today North Carolina lawmakers doubled-down on discrimination and cemented North Carolina's reputation as the worst state in the nation for LGBTQ people. This bill does nothing to repeal HB2. Instead, it institutes a statewide prohibition on equality by banning nondiscrimination protections across North Carolina and fuels the flames of anti-transgender hate. Each and every lawmaker who supported this bill has betrayed the LGBTQ community."
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