We start with South Dakota. Earlier this year, the South Dakota legislature passed a bill that would have required students in public schools to use the restrooms and locker rooms that corresponded to their biological sex. The bill accommodated students who were uncomfortable with that by requiring schools to provide a private single-user facility. Just as our Student Privacy Protection bill would have done, this bill would have protected the privacy rights of all students, not just a select few.
Last month, Republican South Dakota governor Dennis Daugaard, who had earlier indicated he was likely to sign the bill, vetoed it saying it was a solution looking for a problem and that local school districts are the best equipped to deal with this problem.
Then there’s Georgia, where the state legislature passed a form of a Religious Freedom Restoration Action but had already severely compromised on the bill restricting it to certain religious organizations and stripping out of it protections for business owners. When the bill went to Republican Governor Nathan Deal, who had said he wouldn’t sign the bill unless the major ...
