The Senate State Affairs Committee tables a bill that mandates the posting of signs on some public restrooms.
Senator Phil Jensen sponsors Senate Bill 202. He says the bill is designed to protect children. Jensen says safety of young people is also a concern of a constituent whose wife encountered a man in a women's restroom. He discusses an experience he had at a downtown Rapid City hotel in his testimony.
"I had a meeting there and walked by a restroom and it said on the door 'whichever'. Well, you know that's an answer. You know, hey, I don't mind if that's put in place there, but I do want to point out that we really should have a public policy that states that there needs to be something on the door of these multi-use bathrooms. Not just single use bathrooms, but these multi-use bathrooms, where there could be someone of the opposite sex in there at the same time as you," Jensen says.
An opponent of Senate Bill 202 says lawmakers need look at the issue carefully. Debra Owen with the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce says bill does not discriminate against a person's sexual orientation or gender identity. But, she says organizations like the National Collegiate Athletic Association require cities to have non-discrimination policies as part of hosting events.
"Part of being able to bid on N-C-A-A championship is they want assurances from those communities is that whether the people who are working at those championship events, or whether they're playing, or cheering, that all be treated with fairness and respect,” Owen says.
Owen says North Carolina lost more than $100 million when the N-C-A-A pulled tournaments from the state due to their opposition to a law approved in 2016. That law, known as House Bill Two, banned cities and towns in North Carolina from installing their own non-discrimination policies, and required people to use the restroom matching the sex on their birth certificates, among other rules.
Sioux Falls will host this year's NCAA Division Two Men's and Women's Basketball National Championships and the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Division Two Men's Basketball Championship next month.
Senate State Affairs moves the bill to the 41st legislative day on a 8-nothing vote with one senator excused.