The Bathroom Bill Might Have Cost Texas 50,000 Jobs
Despite all the breathless excitement and competing promotion among cities, attracting the Amazon second headquarters—also known as HQ2—to Texas is a long shot thanks to Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott. They may have already pissed away $5 billion in construction and 50,000 permanent jobs for Texans with this summer’s special legislative session and its marquee issue—the bathroom bill.
Only the most craven cynics still promote the idea that the bathroom bill, which businesses in Texas lined up against last summer, had anything to do with keeping predatory men out of women’s bathrooms. The legislation was solely about whipping up anger against the LGBTQ community within a fundamentalist religious base of voters, who tend to turn out heavily in the Republican primary. It may have been good primary politics for the state’s top two leaders, but now that a grand economic prize is on the table it looks like foolishness at best and gross incompetence at worst.
Amazon, which already had 20,000 fulfillment jobs in Texas, was one of the companies that opposed the bathroom bill. One of the major concerns businesses had about the bill was that it would make employee recruitment and retention a problem—not only for LGBTQ employees, but for a millennial workforce that tends to be more tolerant than previous generations. And though the company’s request for proposal to cities vying to land the new corporate HQ does not specifically mention anti-discrimination ordinances, it does say, “The Project requires a compatible cultural and community environment for its long term success. This includes the presence and support of a diverse population, excellent institutions of higher education, local government structure and elected officials eager and willing to work with the company, among other attributes.”
But if you’re still unsure if the bathroom fight will affect Amazon’s decision on whether to come to Texas, let’s look to recent history for an example. Not so long ago, Texas almost lost an $80 million Apple sales and service center and its 700 jobs over a gay rights issue.
Read more: https://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/have-dan-patrick-and-greg-abbott-already-cost-texas-50000-jobs/
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