Because it Can

            There’s an off-color riddle I once heard in my high school’s locker room.  It involved a dog and it’s ability to lick a certain part of its anatomy.  The punch line was “because it can.”

            It’s hard not to think about that riddle in light of what conservative state legislatures and governors have been doing to the progressive legislation trickling out of some of their towns, counties and cities.  Case in point: North Carolina’s House Bill 2, which, among other things, neutralized the City of Charlotte’s attempt to accommodate transgendered people and their use of restroom and changing facilities located in the city.  The law also voids and pre-empts any other  municipal anti-discrimination laws affecting employment and public accommodations as well as any l local laws that seek to raise wages, regulate working hours or improve working conditions beyond what has been done by the State.

            I’ve previously argued that the attack on the provisions of the Charlotte law that allow people to use the restrooms and changing facilities that match their current gender identities are symbolic and unnecessary.  There is no evidence that a male sexual predator has ever taken advantage of a law like Charlotte’s to harass women or children in a public restroom or changing facility.  Nor is there likely to be.

            When the Charlotte City Council adopted the law, the North Carolina state legislature was not in session and it wasn’t supposed to begin its 2016 session until April 25. It could have waited until then and taken the matter up in the general course of its business.  Since the democratically adopted Charlotte law doesn’t affect anyone but the residents of Charlotte, the State Legislature could have turned a blind eye to the controversy.   

            That’s apparently what Governor Pat McCrory, who is facing a tough reelection bid this year, wanted when he declined to call the state legislature back into session.

            But that’s not what state legislative leaders wanted.  They arranged for their colleagues to return to Raleigh over a month early to address the Charlotte law.  The move gave the matter nationwide prominence. 

            After almost no discussion, the State Legislature passed HB 2 with the support of mostly Republican legislators.  11 Democrats, who represent primarily rural House districts, went along with their Republican colleagues.  In the State Senate, all of the Democrats walked out in protest.

            The backlash has been entirely predictable.  PayPal has cancelled its plans to build a major hub in the state.  Braeburn Pharmaceuticals now says it’s reconsidering its plans to build a $50 million facility in Durham County, and the NBA is reconsidering holding its 2017 all-star game in Charlotte.  According to ABC News, “more than 100 corporate leaders have decried the law, saying it is unfair and makes it more difficult to attract talent.”  And Bruce Springsteen cancelled a concert in Greensboro because “some things are more important than a rock show,” the Boss explained, “and this fight against prejudice and bigotry, . . is one of them.” 

            You always have to take local political needs into account when you look at something like this.  But, it doesn’t appear as if the rest of the state’s residents were clamoring for the state legislature to block Charlotte’s law.  And I have to believe that the governor and some of the state legislature’s leaders must have been sophisticated enough to anticipate the backlash.  So why did the state legislature act?

            This is the part where the licking dog comes in.  Table 1, compares the demographics of Charlotte with those of the rest of the state.

Table 1

	Charlotte	North Carolina	Charlotte Share
Whites	51.88%	69.59%	5.92%
Blacks	34.96%	21.47%	12.94%
Hispanics	13.43%	8.7%	12.96%
Asians	5.56%	2.38%	18.57%
Growth	43.26%	21.13%	13.76%
College Degree	40.66%	27.79%	11.37%
Foreign Born	15.26%	7.6%	15.95%

Source American Community Survey and author’s calculations.

            Nothing about Charlotte resembles the rest of the state.  Its percentages of Blacks and Hispanics, are much higher, as are its percentages of people with at least a college degree and people born in another country.  Charlotte accounts for a large proportion of the state’s diversity.

            Table 2 gives another view of this difference in terms of population density.

Table 2

	Charlotte	Outside Charlotte	Multiplier
Density	2585.53	167.71	15.48
Whites	1341.32	119.26	11.25
Blacks	903.97	34.05	26.55
Hispanics	347.14	13.91	24.95
Asians	143.67	3.53	40.73
Growth	780.75	27.41	28.48
College Degree	684.84	29.90	22.91
Foreign Born	394.43	11.64	33.88

Source American Community Survey and author’s calculations.

Charlotte’s population density is over 15 times greater than it is in the rest of the state and on a people per square mile basis, it is growing more than 28 times faster.  People living in Charlotte are far more likely to be living in proximity to people who have college degrees, were born outside the U.S. or who are not white than people living elsewhere in North Carolina.

            These charts understate the differences between Charlotte and other North Carolina communities because they lump people living in North Carolina cities like Raleigh and Greensboro in with the rest of the state.

            Charlotte’s diversity probably contributes to its status as a politically blue island in a predominantly red state red sea.  Charlotte’s mayor is a Democrat as are 9 of its 11 city council members.  And it is represented in the state legislature by a delegation that consists of 8 House members, 7 of whom are Democrats  and 4 State Senators, 3 of whom are Democrats.

            According to the Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina’s state legislative districts are seriously gerrymandered, and according to Common Cause “90 percent of the lawmakers who voted for HB 2 either have no opponent this fall or won their last race by more than 10 percentage points.”

            All of this led the state legislature to the kind of collective action problem we know so well here in the Tragic Commons.  Given the backlash, it would have been in the State’s best interests to ignore the Charlotte law.

            Unfortunately, once a bill dealing with a largely symbolic matter makes its way to the floor, it’s hard for anyone to vote against it, particularly if you can’t justify your vote by pointing to direct economic benefits your constituents are likely to receive.  If a legislator is being forced to vote on a symbolic matter, who wants to be the only legislator from a morally traditional district who didn’t take action to prevent men from using the ladies room? Let somebody else protect the State at large.

            Normally, that would be a job for the governor.  But Governor McCrory needs the evangelicals to turn out for him if he has any hope of keeping his seat in the Fall. He had no choice, as a political matter, but to sign the bill.

            The upshot is that Charlotte was an easy target for the largely Republican state legislature.  Few if any of the legislators who voted for HB 2 will face any retribution from the voters.  It would be surprising if any of their constituents care very much about what goes on in the state’s largest city, a place that must seem like a foreign country to many of them.  A vote in favor of HB 2 must have seemed like an easy way for state legislators to strike a blow against the demographic forces that, for many people, are changing America into a place that more closely resembles Charlotte than the neighborhoods and towns they used to live in.

            And that’s why the situation reminds me of the licking dog.  It’s always nice to have the capacity to give oneself some temporary meaningless pleasure, particularly when no one else has the power to stop you.

            But all that licking ultimately gets you nowhere, and, instead, ends up being just a colossal waste of time and energy.