A bad week in court (again) for NC Republicans
It has not been a good few days in the courts for North Carolina Republican lawmakers. Then again, it’s not been a very good decade.
The party that’s lost on abortion restrictions and racial justice and voter suppression (and voting again) took two more L’s in the past week, with a hint of more losses to come.
First, a federal district court judge ruled Friday against a 2015 N.C. law stopping animal-rights activists from posing as farm workers to secretly document conditions on farms. The judge, Thomas Schroeder, said that N.C’s “ag-gag” law didn’t just ban undercover animal rights videos but was written so broadly that it could ban other activities such as the reporting of crimes. Schroeder agreed with plaintiffs, who said there was a danger the law would compromise First Amendment rights.
In other words, it was a sloppily written law that left people vulnerable in a rush to protect businesses. It’s far from the first time N.C. lawmakers forgot the Constitution on their way to enacting their agenda.
Monday brought even bigger news, as the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision holding that employers can’t discriminate against employees because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. The ruling, which concerned Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was a momentous win for the LGBTQ community. It also was a loss - again - for HB2.
You remember HB2. Passed in 2016, it was among the most devastating measures in North Carolina history, one that embraced discrimination and unleashed economic harm throughout the state. It was so harmful, in fact, that new Gov. Roy Cooper and Democrats agreed in 2017 to a hollow repeal just to get it off the books and let everyone pretend it was OK to do business in N. C. again. That repeal may have brought conventions and sporting events back to the state, but it kept intact HB2’s worst provision - a ban on cities and counties enacting non-discrimination ordinances.
Monday’s ruling, however, was a direct blow to Republicans who supported the discrimination that HB2 permitted. Because as much as lawmakers tried to claim the measure was about transgender people and bathrooms, HB2 also made it illegal for cities to expand on state laws regulating workplace discrimination. Republicans, quite simply, didn’t want to offer those protections to the LGBTQ community.
The Supreme Court has now changed that in North Carolina and throughout the country, at least at businesses with 15 or more employees. But as Justice Neil Gorsuch noted, the ruling is not likely to be the Court’s last word on several issues surrounding LGBT rights. Other courts are considering cases involving sex-segregated bathrooms and locker rooms, and groups already have vowed to challenge the Trump administration’s recent efforts to roll back health care protections for transgender people. The Court’s ruling Monday may narrowly involve Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, but the justices now have foundationally declared that protections against discrimination on the basis of “sex” also include orientation and gender identity. That’s potentially a seismic shift on gay and transgender rights.
In North Carolina, LGBTQ people still face discrimination and unequal access outside the workplace, including with health care, rental property and public accommodations. HB 142 will allow local governments and institutions to change some of that beginning Dec. 1, 2020, although Republicans could try to block such measures once again if they regain a supermajority in November.
Such a move would be out of step with where the country - and the courts - are pointing. If only that were a deterrent in North Carolina.
