Madison Mayor Paul Soglin said in a letter Monday he is prohibiting city government employees from traveling to North Carolina until further notice, citing “state-sanctioned LGBT discrimination.”
The controversial law, signed March 23, requires North Carolinians to use the bathroom that corresponds to their sex at birth. It also prohibits any municipality in the state from adding new legal protections for gay, lesbian or transgender individuals.
The letter, sent to city department heads as well as the City Council, called North Carolina’s new "religious freedom" law “inconsistent with city of Madison policy.”
Soglin said in the letter that if a city employee had a contractual obligation to attend a meeting in North Carolina, the city attorney’s office would assess whether an exception to the ban is necessary.
Soglin’s letter follows Dane County Executive Joe Parisi’s decision last week to prohibit county employees from traveling to North Carolina. Parisi also banned travel to Mississippi, which has a similar law.
