House Republicans continue to operate government spending bills to engage in the culture wars, and last week debated legislation that would ban the display of pride flags on certain federal buildings, defund a recent Latino history museum and target certain LGBTQ and racial equality policies and programs.
Provisions in the bills regarding funding for the departments of Interior, Transportation and Housing, and Urban Development are unlikely to be implemented after negotiations with Senate Democrats. But they signal that majority Republicans in the House will continue to focus strongly on controversial social issues, just like their counterparts in GOP-majority statehouses.
Spending bills, especially in the House, often contain policy provisions favored by the majority party. But the level of detail in the measurements, which have seen fewer such fights in the past, reflects a more aggressive stance by House Republicans, observers said.
Democrats object to the overall spending levels in the Republican-drafted House spending bills, which are lower than those outlined in House Republicans’ debt ceiling deal with President Joe Biden. But Democrats are also highly critical of the inclusion of cultural issues that have little to do with spending.
The bill to fund the Department of Transportation and HUD and draft act on financing the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency “Stuff the MAGA culture wars down the throats of the American people,” House Rules Committee ranking member Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on the floor Thursday.
The Transportation-HUD bill, the vote on which has been postponed until the week of November 6, contains a controversial provision block expenses at three specific LGBTQ community centers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The language was adopted during a tense committee meeting in July that featured accusations of hatred and bigotry among Democrats.
In a statement, Democrat Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts called the provision “one of this Congress’s more brazen moves in the culture war.”
Spokespeople for House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas, and HUD Transportation Subcommittee Chairman Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, did not immediately return messages seeking comment on Friday.
The Transportation and HUD and House bills would also block funding for LGBTQ pride flags in the departments and agencies covered by those bills and would include a provision prohibiting disciplinary action against people with “sincerely held religious beliefs” against same-sex marriage.
A bill to fund the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies, which the House passed on Friday almost along party lines 213-203 votescontains provisions blocking financing for Smithsonian National Museum of American Latinos, various diversity programs and the promotion of critical race theory. Congress authorized the creation of a museum in 2020 that will showcase the history, culture and achievements of Latino communities.
Three Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler and Marc Molinaro of New York, voted against the bill. One Democrat, Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted in favor.
New fronts of the culture war
Biased provisions in spending bills are nothing recent, said former Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who served on the House Appropriations Committee from 2011 until his retirement in 2018.
However, they are generally more common in bills related to spending on health care, labor, education and homeland security.
Bills to fund construction of military facilities and the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Energy “usually didn’t get that many bad votes,” Dent told States Newsroom, referring to partisan politics.
Republican amendments to cut spending seen as wasteful were “not uncommon,” but they were generally consistent with cultural issues, he said.
The delicate nature of some provisions appears more targeted than in previous years, said Sonya Acosta, senior housing policy analyst at the liberal think tank the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
“It is nothing new for members of Congress to pursue anti-LGBTQ policies,” Acosta said. “But the fact that they are so small feels different.”
Appropriators, generally viewed in Congress as moderates who must compromise, insert controversial provisions into bills to appease more extreme members, Dent said.
“This has been going on for years and it’s getting worse,” he added. “Just getting these people to force owners to write laws that we knew about was never going to become law. But it’s a wink and a nod: “OK, we’ll get this garbage out of the House and we’ll eventually get to where we want to go, but we have to go through this process.”
The goal of environmental justice
Another example would be an amendment to the Environmental Protection Act proposed by Texas Republican Chip Roy that would block funding for environmental justice programs.
Biden Justice Initiative40 seeks to spend 40% of some environmental and climate funds on disadvantaged communities that have been harmed by pollution and climate impacts.
“This entire ideology is based on the idea that federal environmental funding should be allocated based on immutable characteristics,” Roy said on the House floor Friday, apparently referring to environmental justice efforts targeting communities of color.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine who serves on the House Appropriations and Environmental Appropriations Subcommittee, responded that undesirable sites such as landfills, incinerators and nuclear waste dumps were often placed in low-income communities.
Environmental justice initiatives aim to reverse historic discrimination that has caused communities to see lower property values, higher health care costs and shorter life expectancies, she added.
“Why would my colleagues try to prevent funding for all efforts to improve the lives of people in rural and low-income communities?” Pingree said. “I’m sorry, but this is just another attempt to implement an extreme agenda designed to attack minority groups at all costs and return the United States to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.”
The House adopted the Roy amendment regarding by a majority of 212 to 204 votes. Republicans Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon and Fitzpatrick joined all Democrats present in voting against the passage.
The bill also included a provision blocking funding that “promotes or advances” critical race theory, an academic field widely used in higher education that has nevertheless become a target of social conservatives concerned that it is an example of reverse racism being taught to juvenile students.
The bill provides some funding for the Bureau of Indian Education, which supports schools located on reservations. Another budget bill covering education, labour, health care and social services also includes funding for BIE.
The power of the Senate
Dent said spending bills are typically decided by the leaders of each party in the House and Senate.
Due to the nature of each chamber – as well as the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passing a bill – the House version typically contains more partisan provisions that are removed from the final product. The Senate version is more bipartisan from the start, which gives that chamber an advantage in negotiations, Dent said.
“No matter what bill crosses the finish line, it won’t have these very controversial politicians because they can’t get a bipartisan consensus in the Senate to get 60 votes,” he said.
Dent, who was considered a moderate during his term and has supported some Democrats since leaving Congress in 2018, criticized House Republicans for allowing a group of conservative hardliners to dictate the appropriations process.
“They’re doing all this in an attempt to appease, appease and reassure this far-right group that didn’t support the budget deal anyway,” he said. “All the time and effort to reassure people who won’t vote for the bill anyway.”
However, Acosta said that including such provisions in the House bill allocating housing funds still has consequences for LGBTQ people.
“LGBTQ people are more likely to experience homelessness,” she said. “And part of that is due to the attitudes that are currently being promoted at the federal level. And that will only exacerbate the problems that are happening on the ground.”
Acosta added that she sees this could make LGBTQ people less comfortable seeking services.
“Even if it’s just messaging,” she said. “This message is extremely harmful and counterproductive.”
