Friday follies

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, March 4, 2016.

Absurd special session on bathrooms still possible

It turns out there might be a special session of the General Assembly to decide public bathroom policy in Charlotte after all.

House Speaker Tim Moore said this week that he and the vast majority of members of the House agree that the nondiscrimination ordinance recently passed by the Charlotte City Council “poses an imminent threat to public safety,” and that a special session to repeal it would be worth the cost.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, who has joined in the fear-mongering about the ordinance, initially seemed lukewarm about the idea of a special session, preferring to repeal it when lawmakers returned to Raleigh for their scheduled summer session that begins April 25.

But Berger seems to be reconsidering the idea of bringing lawmakers back early to debate bathroom policy.

Berger and Moore and Gov. Pat McCrory keep insisting that a provision in the ordinance that allows transgender people to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity is somehow a threat to children and will open the door to sexual predators.

It’s nonsense of course. As you have read here before, roughly 250 local governments across the country, including Columbia, South Carolina, have similar rules in place and there haven’t been any problems.

That is not a surprise since the laws governing behavior in public bathrooms haven’t changed and all the law does is allow transgender people to avoid harassment and intimidation when they use a public restroom facility.

Frustratingly, no one has asked Moore, Berger or McCrory about the evidence for their sensational claims or if they have talked to officials in places where ordinances like Charlotte’s are already in place.

But this isn’t about evidence or public safety. It is about politics, rallying the far-right religious base with a divisive social issue.

Berger made that clear again this week by blaming Attorney General Roy Cooper for not enforcing the law, which doesn’t make any sense since the laws to protect people from assault, exposure, etc., are still in place and enforceable by local authorities.

Cooper has nothing to do with the local ordinance but he is the leading Democratic candidate for governor, and Berger is a supporter of Gov. McCrory.

McCrory and Moore have so far only criticized the bathroom provision in the Charlotte ordinance, which also protects members of the LGBT community from discrimination by businesses open to the public. A hotel cannot refuse a room to a gay couple because they are gay just as they cannot deny a room to person because of their race.

But a story this week on WRAL suggested that Berger wants to repeal the entire ordinance, as does Sen. Buck Newton, who is a Republican candidate for attorney general.

Apparently Berger and Newton think it is fine for hotels and taxis and other public services to refuse to serve gay people simply because they are gay. So much for equal rights under the law.

Teacher screening for some schools funded with taxpayer money

State Superintendent June Atkinson this week defended the state’s background screening of teachers after USA Today gave North Carolina a failing grade on its screening program and letting other states know about problems with teachers who are dismissed or disciplined.

Atkinson told a legislative committee that the state’s success rate is over 99 percent in its screening program but that hasn’t stopped critics of public schools from using the USA Today story to blast the state’s public education system.

Of course the state needs to be vigilant about screening the background of teachers before allowing them in the classroom, but there’s a key part of the story that is missing and one the public school critics don’t want to talk about.

Private school and religious academies in North Carolina that receive taxpayer money through the voucher scheme created by the General Assembly are not even required to conduct basic criminal checks of teachers, much less extensive background screenings.

Talk about a failing grade.

The welcome but hypocritical support of the zoo

Gov. Pat McCrory stopped by the polar bear exhibit at the state zoo this week to welcome the arrival of the newest polar bear to the exhibition. McCrory used the occasion to tout the Connect NC bond which will provide $25 million to improve exhibits at the zoo.

Nothing wrong with that of course. The zoo deserves public investments and McCrory has long been a supporter of the zoo and the polar bear exhibit in particular, cutting the ribbon on the new polar bear habitat that opened in 2014.

But it is worth noting that when Republicans took over the General Assembly in the 2010 election, one of their most often used attacks against the Democrats was that they supported a state budget that included money for a polar bear exhibit at the zoo.

Republican groups reprised the ad in 2012 legislative races. Governor McCrory didn’t mention the Republican attack ads when he cut the ribbon on the new polar bear exhibit in 2014, and he didn’t mention this week either.

Apparently he and legislative leaders now believe that investing in improvements at the zoo is a good idea, and they’re right. They are hypocritical, but they are right.

http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2016/03/04/the-follies-249/