On Monday morning, with no advance warning, Charlotte’s city council convened and (reportedly) passed a repeal of the offending ordinance, contingent on the General Assembly repealing H.B. 2. Governor-elect Roy Cooper, a Democrat, issued a statement saying that the GOP leaders in the General Assembly had promised him they’d convene a special session on Tuesday to fully repeal H.B. 2. Cooper had reportedly also lobbied city-council members to repeal the ordinance.

It was a big gamble for the governor-elect: If he won, he would have his first major victory under his belt even before he was sworn in, slaying an unpopular law. But to do that, he had to rely on the same GOP leaders who had stealthily hatched a plan to strip Cooper of his gubernatorial powers the week before.

The first sign that Cooper’s gamble might be ill-advised came Monday afternoon, when Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore issued a joint statement. “For months, we’ve said if Charlotte would repeal its bathroom ordinance that created the problem, we would take up the repeal of H.B. 2,” they said. “But Roy Cooper is not telling the truth about the legislature committing to call itself into session—we’ve always said that was Gov. McCrory’s decision, and if he calls us back, we will be prepared to act. For Cooper to say otherwise is a dishonest and disingenuous attempt to take credit.”

Though Cooper had initially said the General Assembly would meet Tuesday, the special session was pushed back to Wednesday. Even before the meeting occurred, pessimism began to well up. Republicans hold large majorities in both houses of the legislature, and it was not clear that there were GOP votes for repeal in both chambers—or even in either one. That meant leaders would either have to rely on Democratic votes or, more likely, caveat “full repeal” to win Republican votes.

There was trouble in Charlotte as well. First, the city council may have violated public-notice laws with its sudden meeting, which is one reason that it was not immediately apparent that rather than repeal the whole ordinance, the council had only repealed the bathroom provision. Second, the city risked arousing the legislature’s ire, both by making their repeal contingent on H.B. 2 repeal, and with a statement in which the council more or less promised to just pass the same ordinance again once H.B. 2 was gone. “The City of Charlotte is deeply dedicated to protecting the rights of all people from discrimination and, with House Bill 2 repealed, will be able to pursue that priority for our community,” members said in a statement. Members of the Durham city council also said they would quickly pass nondiscrimination bills as soon as H.B. 2 was repealed.

Christmas is also a time to celebrate faith, but by Wednesday, the only faith on hand was bad, with Charlotte distrustful of the General Assembly, and the General Assembly distrustful of Charlotte. Nonetheless, on Wednesday morning Charlotte’s city council met again and fully repealed the city’s ordinance, this time without a contingency clause.