Just two years ago, Char­lotte’s re­la­tion­ship with North Carolina’s Repub­li­can­con­trolled leg­is­la­ture hit rock bot­tom.
GOP lead­ers blamed the city and then-Mayor Jennifer Roberts for what they called the “rad­i­cal bath­room pol­icy” that prompted House Bill 2 and for the hun­dreds of job losses that fol­lowed. An al­ready-ten­u­ous re­la­tion­ship be­came down­right toxic.
But last month, cur­rent Demo­cratic Mayor Vi Lyles and her city council sup­port­ers got what one Re­pub­li­can called a “rock star wel­come” from GOP national com­mit­tee mem­bers in Austin, Texas. When they awarded the city their 2020 national con­ven­tion, party lead­ers in North Carolina and across the coun­try heaped praise on the city and its mayor.
“I love that it’s the Queen City and we have Mayor Vi Lyles – you are a queen,” GOP national Chair Ronna McDaniel said.
But will the good­will trans­late into tan­gi­ble benefits in Raleigh or Wash­ing­ton?
“Hope­fully the doors will open a lit­tle eas­ier when Char­lotte goes to those of­fices and asks for things that they need,” said Larry Sha­heen, a GOP con­sul­tant from Meck­len­burg.
For Lyles, the diplo­macy be­gan long be­fore the city landed the con­ven­tion. She met long ago with GOP leg­isla­tive lead­ers as well as Wash­ing­ton law­mak­ers, in­clud­ing U.S. Sens. Richard Burr and Thom Til­lis.
“I’ve been work­ing on those re­la­tion­ships from the day I’d been sworn in,” she said.
HOPE­FULLY THE DOORS WILL OPEN A LIT­TLE EAS­IER WHEN CHAR­LOTTE GOES TO (RALEIGH OR WASH­ING­TON) AND ASKS FOR THINGS THAT THEY NEED.
Lyles cham­pi­oned the con­ven­tion de­spite lat­ede­vel­op­ing op­po­si­tion from a ma­jor­ity of city council Democrats.
So what will the city get be­sides an open door?
$ 7 bil­lion plan that would ex­tend light rail through­out the county, a plan that would need fed­eral and state fund­ing.
The city also faces a se­vere short­age of af­ford­able hous­ing. Jobs, along with the fi­nan­cial in­cen­tives it of­ten takes to get them, are al­ways a pri­or­ity.
Char­lotte has yet to de­velop an agenda for the leg­isla­tive ses­sion that starts in Jan­uary. The city also will try to pre­vent the of­ten un­fore­see­able things crit­ics say could hurt the city.
This year law­mak­ers re­duced main­te­nance funds for Char­lotte tran­sit by $3 mil­lion, or 26 per­cent.
In the past year they’ve re­drawn lo­cal vot­ing districts in cities such as Greens­boro and Asheville. Three years ago, Char­lotte and other cities fought ef­forts to trans­fer sales tax rev­enue from ur­ban to ru­ral ar­eas. And a bill last year would have cost Char­lotte mil­lions if it was found to be a de facto “sanc­tu­ary city” for un­doc­u­mented im­mi­grants.
Then there’s the air­port. In 2013, law­mak­ers pushed to take Char­lotte Dou­glas In­ter­na­tional Air­port from the city’s con­trol and put it un­der first an au­thor­ity and fi­nally a com­mis­sion.
Though the is­sue landed in court, the city con­tin­ues to run the air­port. But some would like to re­solve that is­sue once and for all.
Host­ing the 2012 Demo­cratic con­ven­tion built good­will for the city, par­tic­u­larly with the ad­min­is­tra­tion of Demo­crat Barack Obama.
He even tapped thenMayor An­thony Foxx as U.S. trans­porta­tion sec­re­tary.
It’s hard to over­state how much has changed from the an­tipa­thy over HB2.
Last year, leading GOP law­mak­ers con­trib­uted to the cam­paign of one of Roberts’ op­po­nents. And Rep. David Lewis, a GOP leader from Har­nett County, even con­sid­ered pulling an elec­tion bill when he was told it could help Roberts’ re-elec­tion. Lyles de­feated her and three other can­di­dates last Novem­ber.
But Re­pub­li­can Rep. Bill Braw­ley of Matthews said law­mak­ers still re­mem­ber com­ments from council Democrats who op­posed the GOP con­ven­tion.
To be sure, Char­lotte would still face re­sis­tance, con­ven­tion or no con­ven­tion.
Leg­isla­tive lead­ers, for ex­am­ple, have long been skep­ti­cal of some ur­ban rail projects. And some pro­pos­als could fall vic­tim to bud­get con­straints.
There’s also in­her­ent ten­sion be­tween the state’s largest ur­ban area and the Democrats who run it and a leg­is­la­ture con­trolled by Re­pub­li­cans from mostly ru­ral ar­eas. And few ex­pect law­mak­ers to sud­denly give Char­lotte ev­ery­thing it wants.
Char­lotte Mayor Vi Lyles speaks to a packed cham­ber dur­ing a July pub­lic fo­rum be­fore the Char­lotte City Council voted to host the 2020 Re­pub­li­can National Con­ven­tion. Lyles cham­pi­oned the con­ven­tion de­spite op­po­si­tion from a ma­jor­ity of city council Democrats.