Since the federal government's May 13 directive to allow transgender students to use school restrooms aligning with their gender identities, 11 states have filed lawsuits against the Obama administration. South Carolina legislators are calling for their state to literally and figuratively follow suit.
Last week, Representative Michael Pitts and 55 other representatives collectively called for Governor Nikki Haley and Attorney General Alan Wilson to sue the federal government.
"The letters that I sent to the governor and to the attorney general had 55 signatures, all Republican, all out of our caucus," Pitts told ABC Columbia. "The Constitution gives us certain rights within the state borders and President Obama, through executive order, has continued to erode that. So the call for this particular lawsuit is to try to stop and reverse that trend."
Pitts, along with the 55 legislators who signed his letters, feel that the federal government has engaged in an overreach beyond rights of individual states. Eleven other states filed lawsuits for the same reported reasons. The office of the attorney general says that it has been working with other states about the issue but has deemed it inappropriate to discuss any legal moves for now.
Pitts asserts that the issue is not one revolving around transgender rights, but one about the rights of local and state governments to make important decisions.
"Where it is an issue is when it becomes an overreach on other issues of states' rights," Pitts said. "That's a direct assault on the sovereignty of the state in the ability of state legislatures to govern themselves."
In the federal directive, the Department of Education and the Department of Justice suggested that schools should treat all of their students equally in terms of program and activity inclusivity as well as the allowance to use restrooms associated with one's gender identity.
"The desire to accommodate others' discomfort cannot justify a policy that singles out and disadvantages a particular class of students," officials said in the directive.
Rep. Pitts says that the transgender issue is one that the Obama administration superfluously emphasized.
"[Obama] creates the issue of transgender, but the real issue is the assault on the sovereignty of the state," Pitts said.
Pitts announced the call for the lawsuit during a legislative session on Thursday morning. While the transgender bathroom bill caused certain controversy, Pitts and other representatives claim that progress in other areas was not hindered. However, they agree for the most part that there is more progress to be made.
"I would like to have seen us address some of the ethics issues that have arisen," Pitts said Thursday.
"We need to be able to come together as a body, blemish out those lines of political mustering and just get down to addressing the issues of our citizens," said Representative Joe McEachern.