Portland Is The Latest City To Ban Employee Travel To North Carolina

This just in: NOPE.

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Good news for city employees: They're not in danger of being sent to North Carolina any time soon.

As expected, Portland City Council voted unanimously today to temporarily prohibit any city travel to the Tar Heel State until officials there repeal a law that prohibits transgender people from using restrooms the correspond with their gender, and stops local governments from enacting protections.

North Carolina's legislature passed the law by a wide margin last week, incensed that the City of Charlotte had attempted to pass an anti-discrimination ordinance.

"It’s always surprising how out of touch, increasingly, state capitols are with the people they’re elected to represent," Commissioner Dan Saltzman said before voting this morning.

"Shame on them," Commissioner Nick Fish said.

The vote comes a little more than three months after Portland enacted a policy requiring single-use, gender-neutral restrooms in many city facilities, and directing study for potentially creating multi-person gender-neutral restrooms.

Portland's move is neither surprising nor unique, of course. Cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and West Palm Beach, Fla., have taken similarly anti-Carolinian steps since the law passed. So have the governors of New York and Vermont.

And Portland's trodden this ground before. Exactly one year ago today, in fact, when Mayor Charlie Hales unilaterally announced he was banning publicly funded travel to Indiana, which had passed a discriminatory law.

Just as in the Indiana incident, there's not much chance any city employee's trip is going to be dashed. Jen Clodius, spokesperson for the city's Office of Management and Finance, says her office has no knowledge of any travel plans to the state, though it can't be completely certain—OMF doesn't find out about those plans until after employees return.

"We did reach out to the city’s travel agency," Clodius says. "They don't have a way to sort for city employees."

So it's technically a mystery, but not a stretch to think this is all symbolic. And just like Indiana, North Carolina's law may not be around for long. It's already being challenged by LGBT advocates, and the state's attorney general says he won't defend the law.

Here's the resolution council passed this morning [pdf].