House pushes back on gender-bending edicts

WASHINGTON—The U.S. House of Representatives adopted a spending bill amendment last night that blocks the Obama administration from stripping North Carolina’s federal funding over newly adopted restroom policies.

“This is about the balance of powers,” said Rep. Robert Pittenger, R-N.C., who introduced the amendment. “We are not ruled by a monarch or a king who can do whatever he wants.”

The amendment is a response to North Carolina’s legal standoff with the Obama administration over the state’s so-called “restroom law,” which protects businesses from being forced to allow people to use restrooms or locker rooms based on gender identity, rather than biological sex. The Department of Justice claims the law violates the Civil Rights Act and threatened to withhold billions of dollars in federal aid for North Carolina’s public schools and transportation systems if state lawmakers didn’t rescind it. North Carolina sued the federal government over the dictate, and the Justice Department countersued.

Pittenger told me this battle is about more than protecting restrooms: It’s about stopping President Barack Obama from bullying states into conforming to his personal beliefs.

If passed, the amendment will ensure North Carolina doesn’t lose its federal funding should the courts side with the Obama administration. And it will block the president’s ability to withhold previously designated federal dollars from other states.

Lawmakers adopted the safeguard on the same day 11 states and three school districts filed suit against the Obama administration over its demand that all public schools redefine gender.

In a joint letter sent earlier this month, the Departments of Justice and Education told all public schools they must follow new standards for transgender students. The Obama administration expects schools to allow boys into girls’ restrooms and changing faculties if they choose to identify as females. A medical diagnosis or birth certificate is not required.

The guidance is nonbinding, but the directive warns the Department of Education will reassess funding for nonconforming schools.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants, including Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Education Secretary John B. King Jr., and Obama, of conspiring to use classrooms as laboratories for a massive social experiment: “Defendants’ rewriting of Title VII and Title IX is wholly incompatible with congressional text. Absent action in Congress, the states, or local communities, defendants cannot foist these radical changes on the nation.”

“We’re here to fight this all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court if we have to,” said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who drafted the suit.

Obama has said repeatedly the school directive is not a moral issue but is about protecting the “most vulnerable” students from bullying and discrimination.

“I think that is part of our obligation as a society to make sure that everybody is treated fairly, and our kids are loved and protected, and their dignity is affirmed,” Obama told BuzzFeed News last week.

Pittenger told me the courts ultimately will have to define what gender identity means. But in the meantime, he said he will fight to make sure North Carolina and other states aren’t punished for sticking to their principles.

The amendment adopted last night is attached to the annual Energy and Water appropriations bill, the first of 14 pieces of legislation to fund the government. Pittenger vowed to propose similar limiting amendments to future spending bills to ensure states opposing Obama’s views don’t get reprimanded.

“It is critical that we address this and reign in this president,” Pittenger said. “We are a constitutionally divided government.”