Sen. Buck Newton --seen here in a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting last week -- has reworked a House Bill intended to protect people from sexual exploitation to one that targets transgender surgery and access to public school library books. (Photo: NCGA video stream)

Bipartisanship is in precious short supply these days in politics and that makes it especially tragic when elected officials waste rare opportunities to advance it.

Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening in the North Carolina Senate.

In its original form, House Bil 805 was a commonsense proposal to crack down on the sexual exploitation of women and children. It passed 113-0.

Last week, however, Senate Republicans took this important bill and loaded it up with several deeply controversial and divisive items from the far right social agenda.

Among the changes: provisions designed to make it harder for transgender people to get the health care they need and a series of new burdens on public school teachers and librarians that will create banned book lists and allow parents to veto instruction in subjects (like evolution) they claim offend their religious beliefs.

The bottom line: The Senate amendments ruin an important bipartisan bill with divisive and ill-conceived changes. The House should reject them.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.