How is North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory funding the legal defense of the unconstitutional anti-transgender "bathroom bill" HB2?
The state legislature already appropriated $8 million for the defense of various actions of dubious legality in court, but Governor McCrory apparently needs more money for the private counsel he hired to defend HB2.
Those funds, if they're granted to him, will be diverted from the state's emergency and disaster relief fund. Because enforcing discrimination is an emergency, I guess.
On Thursday, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved giving Gov. Pat McCrory's office $500,000 to defend the law in court by transferring the money from a disaster relief fund. The measure still must pass the full Senate and House.
Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow and co-chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Thursday that McCrory's office requested the funds.
It's not as if the state is facing actual emergencies, like the arrival of the Zika virus or the onset of the Atlantic hurricane season.
McCrory might as well light this money on fire.