Mayor says Charlotte backed deal because GOP leaders vowed for first time to repeal HB2
Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts says the City Council agreed to rescind its nondiscrimination ordinance because, for the first time, Republican legislative leaders in Raleigh gave their word that such action by the city would cause the General Assembly to fully repeal House Bill 2.
“It was the first time we had heard the actual word ‘repeal,’ ” Roberts, a Democrat, told the Observer in an interview last week.
In the days following the council’s Dec. 19 vote to rescind its ordinance, many have wondered why it took such a step after previously drawing a hard-line position on keeping the ordinance on the books.
There had been discussions in May and September about a possible deal, but Roberts and the mostly Democratic Council had rejected both times the idea of symbolically rescinding an ordinance – designed to protect the LGBTQ community from discrimination – that had been nullified by the legislature’s approval of House Bill 2.
Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/article123757364.html