Confront spending deadline

Culture war consumes Congress as lawmakers confront spending deadline

Lawmakers’ tempers are boiling over as Republican provisions on cultural and social issues become ubiquitous in this year’s House spending bills.

By IRIE SENTNER

Partisan culture wars are boiling over on House spending bills touching on even the most mundane agencies — complicating Congress’ efforts to keep the government operating past September.

Republican policy riders seeking to limit diversity efforts, drag shows, Pride flag displays and promotion of critical race theory are rife throughout the House’s dozen proposed annual spending bills, including those that would fund the national parks, pay for roads or maintain U.S. embassies abroad.

The cascade of social issues turning up in the must-pass bills is noteworthy for how it’s pervaded this year’s appropriations process — and for how the GOP concerns have spread far beyond top-tier conservative causes such as limiting abortions and gender-affirming care.

And liberal groups are keeping score: Of the 12 bills moving through the House appropriations process in recent months, policy riders targeting agency diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have appeared in 11, according to tracking from Human Rights Campaign. Language seeking to ban “discrimination” against people who do not believe in gay marriage appeared in 10. Eight sought to block funding for Pride flags and gender inclusive care. Three took aim at drag shows.

The bill that would fund the Interior Department, including the national parks, would prohibit spending on “eco-grief counseling” and critical race theory, and would prohibit any non-“official” flags from flying over the department’s buildings — a response to GOP complaints about Pride flags.

The Interior bill would also zero out funding for the Smithsonian’s planned National Museum of the American Latino, after Republicans said a precursor exhibit promoted socialism and portrayed Hispanics as “victims.” But Republicans said they’re open to dropping that language if the Smithsonian addresses their concerns. Democratic efforts to strip that provision from the bill failed.

Most of the policy riders face slim-to-none odds in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but they complicate efforts to meet Congress’ Sept. 30 deadline to keep the government funded during the next fiscal year. House GOP leaders also face challenges in their own chamber in finding the votes needed for their spending bills, a week after the same kinds of social and cultural disputes threatened to derail the annual defense policy bill.

In addition to the culture war riders, the spending bills on the House side would make steep cuts across the board. The Senate, on the other hand, is advancing largely bipartisan bills that include tens of billions of additional emergency dollars.

The push on social issues is an unusual turn for the House Appropriations Committee, which has historically dodged the brunt of the partisan battles raging elsewhere on Capitol Hill. But Democrats on the committee say that’s changed this year.

“We just are continuing to spiral downward with more and more partisan rancor,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), an 18-year veteran of the committee, during a markup of the transportation, housing and urban development spending bill last week.

Republicans have maintained that they’re only responding to Democrats’ efforts to use government power to move the country to the left.

During the transportation markup — which went into recess three times over an emotionally charged, hourslong debate of an amendment that would strip funding from three LGBTQ organizations — Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) was blunt about the impact of the Republicans’ culture push.

“They always say there are Democrats, Republicans and appropriators, and now we have to say there are Democrats, Republicans, appropriators — and unfortunately, a bigger umbrella called bigots,” he said. He added that the committee was “above this” and that he hoped it would not be “permanently damaged by this action.”

Committee Republican Ryan Zinke of Montana said the amendment “has nothing to do with discrimination over a class of citizens or people or race” but rather with “an ideology and whether or not the taxpayers should have to pay for it.”

“To suggest it’s anything else,” he said, “is simply a political theater.”

“Appropriations should be appropriate,” Zinke added.

The committee ultimately approved the amendment along party lines.

Pocan also denounced a provision in the State Department’s funding bill that would ban spending on Pride flags and “drag queen workshops, performances, or documentaries.” At a June markup, he noted that the cost of Pride flags is negligible and accused Appropriations Republicans of “micromanaging” the budget to please people “who’ve built a brand around hate.”

“Let’s just be honest among friends that this isn’t for appropriations purposes,” Pocan said.

Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart (R-Fla.), who chairs the subcommittee overseeing State Department funding, said Republicans are “refocusing this bill.”

“If anybody thinks that U.S. taxpayer dollars going for things like drag shows around the world help our national security interests, thank God you have the right to believe so,” he said. But that kind of funding harms public support for programs that “forward our national security interests around the globe,” he argued.

Democrats have accused Speaker Kevin McCarthy of allowing the appropriations process to fall victim to demands from hard-right lawmakers who typically vote against spending bills anyway, such as members of the Freedom Caucus.

“Is there no limit on how low you will go to break the faith and trust which this committee is supposed to operate, all to placate the whims of some who, I might add, in looking historically do not ever vote for appropriations bills?” asked the Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, during the transportation markup. “You are negotiating with terrorists.”

Republicans called for DeLauro’s comments to be stricken, and after a recess, she requested to “withdraw the offending words.”