This week Congresswoman Virginia Foxx from the 5th District joined Republican colleagues in the North Carolina delegation in expressing the belief that any move to withhold federal funding from North Carolina is without legal merit and an unprecedented overreach by the federal government. North Carolina’s Republican members of the U.S. House have given the Department of Education until today/Friday to say whether officials will punish the state for its controversial HB2 law by withholding federal funds from public schools and universities. All 10 GOP representatives from the Tar Heel state signed a letter Monday to U.S. Secretary of Education, which stated that they are “troubled by the threat . . . (to) withhold federal funding from North Carolina in response to the enforcement of House Bill 2.” North Carolina gets about $4.5 billion from the federal government annually in education funding. Their letter also said that North Carolina’s new law – which prohibits transgender people from using bathrooms that don’t correspond to their birth sex – does not violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or Title IX regulations, which aim to ensure equality in public schools.