http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/ned-barnett/article72280037.html
A tangled plan ensnared McCrory in HB2
The fallout from House Bill 2, with its usurpation of local powers and its codification of discrimination, is broad and ongoing. But one aspect of this legislative disaster remains mysterious and unexplored: How did a bill packed with so many profoundly divisive provisions get swept through the legislature in a one-day special session and signed into law within hours of its passage?
An excellent picture of the origins of HB2 lies in a Sept. 29, 2015 story reported by The News and Observer’s Colin Campbell. It’s a rare and now valuable account because it focuses not on what passed at the chaotic end of the session but on an attempted legislative coup that failed.
The story reports on the work of a conference committee, a panel appointed to work out differences on bill language between the House and Senate. The committee was chaired by two Republican lawmakers from Wake County, Rep. Paul Stam and his former staffer and now state senator, Chad Barefoot. The committee took up competing versions of a bill about professional counseling and added unrelated, sweeping amendments that later re-emerged as key provisions of HB2. And it may explain why the “bathroom bill” oddly contains a provision on the minimum wage.
Campbell wrote that the rewritten bill “seemed to overhaul a wide range of nondiscrimination ordinances, housing regulations and workplace regulations that some cities and counties have adopted.” The new version also barred the establishment of a local minimum wage.
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