North Carolina legislators are nearing a compromise that would repeal the state’s controversial bathroom law that restricts transgender people from using public bathrooms or locker rooms of their choice, according to several news reports.
The repeal bill, which is likely to be voted on late Thursday, is expected to pass, according to The Charlotte Observer.
Businesses had put intense pressure on North Carolina legislators to reverse course on the legislation, which was originally passed in April. Companies including Bank of America (BAC), the state’s largest employer, as well as Salesforce (CRM), and IBM (IBM). PayPal (PYPL) had cancelled plans to expand in North Carolina.
Additionally, many companies and out-of-state government agencies prohibited work travel to the state, and Duke University said that the bill would hurt recruiting. Meanwhile, the NCAA, the NBA, and a number of high-profile musicians moved events originally scheduled for North Carolina to other states.
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Earlier this week an Associated Press survey estimated that the bill would cost North Carolina nearly $4 billion in lost business over the next 12 years.
The state Senate approved the repeal late on Wednesday, clearing the way for it to proceed to a full House vote. While this latest bill repeals the law, known as HB2, it also blocks any future anti-discrimination ordinances passed at the local level.
Some Democrats and LGBT advocates opposed the repeal bill because of that prohibition. Such an ordinance in Charlotte that would have made it illegal to prevent LGBT people from using bathrooms of their choice prompted the state’s original bathroom law as a countermeasure.
The compromise has been blessed by both Republican leaders who pushed through the H2B legislation as well as by Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper, who as attorney general, blasted the bathroom bill last year and refused to defend it against lawsuits.
