Comments on HB2

April 8, 2016

Comments on HB2

Asheville Chamber Legislative Luncheon

Kit Cramer

April 8, 2016

I want to address the elephant in the room: House Bill 2. 

Comments on HB2

Asheville Chamber Legislative Luncheon

Kit Cramer

April 8, 2016

I want to address the elephant in the room: House Bill 2. 

The Chamber is a membership organization with a focus on business, and building community through business.  We have over 1,800 member companies that represent a broad cross section of industry. Earlier this week the Citizen Times reported on a poll that showed North Carolinians are almost evenly divided on this law.

But there is one element of HB2 that we should all agree upon: Discrimination, in any form, is not acceptable, and it’s bad for business.  It’s not acceptable in Asheville. It’s not acceptable in Western North Carolina and it’s not acceptable in our state. Any hint of discrimination should be scrubbed from the law. The very fabric of who we are as a community is tolerant. 

That being said, HB2 is not a simple law.  It touches on a number of issues that impact business. And it is our role as an organization to delve into those issues, understand their implications, share that information with our members and elected officials and advocate for improvements in the law. And by the way, it’s not a fun role to play.

We have members with diverse views, but our common desire is to help make Asheville and Buncombe County great places to live and work. Just as a reminder, we are non-partisan. We are not going to get embroiled in political rhetoric, but instead, do the work to enable us to effectively address important issues for our business community.

So that’s what we intend to do. The General Assembly goes back into short session on April 25th. We are working with members who have subject matter expertise on elements of the law to understand the impact on the business environment. 

We’re also monitoring reaction to HB2 and its impact on business and will share those results with our own delegation as well as legislators around the state.

In fact, I’ll share one reaction right now. We’ve been working on a project that would bring 500 good-paying technology jobs to Buncombe County.  The site selector called us yesterday to say that while they loved Asheville, they loved our team, and loved their last visit here, the company’s CEO has said that not another dime would be spent on expansion in North Carolina until HB2 is addressed.  Charlotte lost 400 jobs with Pay Pal’s announcement. We’re talking about another 100 jobs on top of that. And we are nowhere near the size of Charlotte. That’s a loss that would be incredibly hard to swallow.

So just in case I haven’t been clear enough: We are against discrimination in any form and want to see it eradicated from the law.