Lt. Gov. Forest visits Goldsboro
By Steve Herring
Published in News on March 30, 2016 1:46 PM
A Charlotte ordinance whose premise was to allow transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice was "insanity," Lt. Gov. Dan Forest said during a Tuesday stump through Goldsboro.
And allowing the state's county and municipalities to exercise such policy-setting authority would be "chaotic," leaving people to navigate a hodgepodge of rules that varied from place to place, he said.
But while the controversy was a major topic of concern, the 30 some people at the lunch at Lane Tree Golf Club, asked about other issues including education, agriculture and the military.
Forest, a Republican, started his day in Greene County before stopping in Wayne for lunch followed by a visit to the Wayne County Courthouse and finally the Wayne County GOP headquarters.
His November re-election bid is a rematch with former state Rep. Linda Coleman, whom he defeated in 2012 by just 6,800 votes.
Forest, a registered architect, said the difference between him and Ms. Coleman is the difference between a conservative and liberal mentality.
"I believe government should generally stay out of our business as much as possible," he said. "We are here to create a strong solid economic playing field for everybody so everybody knows what the rules are, can predict them and operate and do business based on that.
"The other (liberal) opinion is that government should get bigger and there are more ways the government should get involved."
As lieutenant governor, Forest presides over the state Senate as president.
Forest said the hot topic in the state and nation is the "bathroom issue" and that he wanted to set the record straight.
Legislators passed House Bill 2 last week in a special session and Gov. Pat McCrory signed it into law that same night.
The idea of the Charlotte policy was to allow transgender people to go to bathroom of their choice, he said.
"What they did with that ordinance is they opened it up wider," he said. "Their ordinance called it sex discrimination to have male and female on bathroom doors. So what they did, they said anybody, basically for any reason, could walk into any bathroom of their choice, any changing facility of their choice, any locker-room of their choice.
"They could walk into any shower facility of their choice. We have heard from thousands of people from across the state saying this is just not good policy. Seventy percent of North Carolinians believe that women should feel safe going into the women's room, going into a changing room, a locker facility without some predator, or sex offender or somebody else walking in."
The state fought that and the new law says a person must go the restroom of the sex listed on their birth certificate, he said.
There is nothing discriminatory about the new law, he said.
People who are clamoring have never read the bill and when asked what they don't like about the bill, they can't cite a specific example, he said.
Businesses can still do what they want, he said,
"Nothing changed," he said. "Nothing is different today in North Carolina than it was a couple of days ago when we passed this bill. We passed for the first time in state history an anti-discrimination policy. Public accommodation is a state job."
Forest said he was not surprised that Attorney General Roy Cooper has announced he would not defend the law against a lawsuit filed against it earlier in the week. It is not the first time Cooper has refused to do his job, Forest said.
Cooper, a Democrat, is running against McCrory in November.
The state will have to hire an attorney to defend the state in the lawsuit challenging the bill, Forest said.
Forest said a common theme he has encountered as he travels around the state, especially rural North Carolina, is what can be done to grow rural North Carolina economically?
"My answer is it depends on where you are," he said.
If a suburb of an urban area, play off the success of that area, he said. If more rural, "dance with the one that brung you" -- agriculture, Forest said.
Agriculture, the state's largest industry, is what has grown eastern North Carolina, Forest said.
Close behind is the military that also has a major economic impact in eastern North Carolina, he said.
The state has been growing and the business community has created almost 270,000 jobs over the last few years. The state cuts taxes by $1.5 billion and followed up cutting income tax by another $1.5 billion, he said.
However, Forest did not mention additional sales taxes including on repair, installation and maintenance services.
"We have put a billion dollars away in the rainy day fund," he said. "We also paid off a $2.8 billion debt to unemployment. We spent $1.5 billion more on education than our predecessors did. We gave teachers the largest raise in the United States of America. A lot of people don't know that.
"We are number seven in the nation in state funding of education. A lot of people don't know that. All of this while a recession went on. We have done all these things to put our fiscal house in order."
Forest also pointed to easing regulatory and environmental rules to make it easier to do business in North Carolina.
Forest said no one knows what impact the national Republican presidential campaign will have on North Carolina elections.
"There are so many scenarios that you could paint," he said. "It doesn't do you any good. It is what is. You have to be nimble. You have to roll with it. You have to adjust to it. That is why we get out in the community and meet as many people as we can.
"We want to be somewhat immune to what is going on. We have to immunize ourselves to some degree to what is going on nationally. I think when people say they hate politics they are generally thinking about Congress -- the inactivity of Congress. We have to find a way to make ourselves immune to that. So we get out in communities and meet people."
That kind of grass-roots base-level campaign is what Forest said he did in the previous campaign.
"It is what we are doing again now. It is just kind of who we are."