Democrats Tout Business in Campaign Against Governor McCrory's Law

It's a gubernatorial election year in North Carolina, and Democrats are ramping up HB2 as an issue.

The business community’s loud statement against North Carolina’s anti-LGBT law is making Republican lawmakers squirm. Now the state's Democratic Party is making an economic argument in a new campaign to get House Bill 2 repealed.

Its new website — BusinessesAgainstHB2.com — decries the law as “bad for business, bad for North Carolina.” A constantly scrolling list of more than 400 companies that oppose the law sweeps up the page.

And it seems lately like that list could update near daily. Target just announced today, for example, that it will invite trans people to use the bathrooms and fitting rooms that correspond with their gender identity. The North Carolina law, on the other hand, requires them to use public bathrooms and locker rooms that don’t match.

“How many other companies will distance themselves from North Carolina because of McCrory’s hateful, job-killing law?” the site asks, referring to Governor Pat McCrory and his vigorous defense of the law. The governor went on Meet the Press this Sunday to make the case that transgender people don’t belong in bathrooms that match their identity. And although he’s signed an executive order that makes slight changes to North Carolina state government policies, it does nothing to change House Bill 2.

McCrory is running for reelection in the state this year, facing the current Democratic attorney general, Roy Cooper, who loudly opposes HB2. And one of the chief backers of the bill — Republican state senator Buck Newton — is running for attorney general. He faces another HB2 opponent in Josh Stein.

The Democrats’ site invites people to share a protest image on their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. “Tell Governor McCrory HB2 Must Be Repealed,” the images say, then noting that “HB2 hurts the North Carolina economy.”