GOP nominates bigoted author of 'bathroom bill' in key House race

Republicans chose their nominee in a key special election in North Carolina’s 9th District: a GOP state legislator who authored North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” — the bigoted, anti-transgender legislation that Republicans were forced to revoke after it embarrassed the state and cost it millions in lost revenue.

State Sen. Dan Bishop defeated a handful of other Republicans on Tuesday to win the nomination for the special election — which is only necessary thanks to Republican election fraud that invalidated the 2018 results.

That leaves Republicans defending themselves against two scandals in the upcoming special election, which will take place on Sept. 10.

There’s precedent that the bathroom bill Bishop sponsored — which would have forced transgender individuals to use the bathroom of their gender at birth, and would have banned localities in the state from enacting protections for the LGBTQ community — has hurt GOP politicians in the state.

Pat McCrory, the GOP governor who signed the bill into law, lost reelection to a Democrat in 2016, thanks in part to backlash from the bill.

Businesses vowed to boycott the state, including the NCAA, which threatened to cancel tournaments in the state that could have cost North Carolina hundreds of millions in revenue. Expert analysts predicted that the bill ultimately could have cost North Carolina nearly $4 billion in lost revenue.

Democrats, for their part, renominated Marine Corps veteran Dan McCready, who trailed the disgraced 2018 GOP nominee Mark Harris by 905 votes in the fraud-tainted election. Harris chose not to run again after the State Board of Elections invalidated Harris’ 2018 victory and called for a new election — because a consultant paid by Harris’ campaign was caught tampering with ballots.

Along with pointing out the GOP election fraud in the last election, Democrats are almost assured to make the bathroom bill an issue against Bishop in this special election, given that Bishop would want to take those same bigoted views against LGBTQ individuals to the federal level.

“Rampant Republican election fraud robbed thousands of North Carolinians of the right to vote that Dan McCready fought to defend in uniform,” Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-IL), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement. “Dan McCready’s record of service and his commitment to fighting for lower health care costs and better job opportunities for North Carolina is why he’s clearly the best candidate in this race.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.