After months of demanding the General Assembly repeal House Bill 2 (HB2), Gov.-elect Roy Cooper killed its repeal Wednesday by pressuring Senate Democrats to vote it down.

On the heels of the Charlotte City Council’s repeal of their radical ordinance forcing men into women’s bathrooms and shower facilities, Senate Republicans offered legislation to hit reset on the issue by fully repealing HB2 and putting in place a cooling-off period on radical bathroom sharing ordinances like Charlotte’s ordinance that prompted HB2. Senate Democrats did not support this. 

So Republicans gave the Democrats a clean up or down vote on repealing HB2 in its entirety. All 16 Democrats voted no.  (See attached.)

Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts and Roy Cooper operated in bad faith by passing a secret, partial repeal in a closed-door meeting, and tried to claim credit for compromising on the same ‘deal’ they killed multiple times for their own political gain during campaign season. But Senate Republicans kept their end of the deal anyway and voted to fully repeal HB2.

“Make no mistake: Roy Cooper and Senate Democrats killed the repeal of HB2, abandoning Roy Cooper’s commitment to avoid divisive social issues by shooting down a temporary cooling off period on ordinances like the one that got us into this mess last March,” said Senate Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham.) “Their action proves they only wanted a repeal in order to force radical social engineering and shared bathrooms across North Carolina, at the expense of our state’s families, our reputation and our economy.”