House Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives continue to employ government spending bills to engage in culture war battles. A bill was debated last week that would ban Pride flags on some federal buildings, eliminate funding for a fresh Latino history museum and target certain LGBTQ and racial justice policies and programs.
The sensitive provisions in the bills funding the Departments of Interior, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development are unlikely to become law after negotiations with the Democratic Senate. But they signal that the Republican majority in the House will continue to place a forceful focus on contentious social issues, as will their counterparts in Republican-majority statehouses.
Spending bills, particularly in the House of Representatives, often contain policy provisions favored by the majority party. But observers said the level of detail of the measures, which have seen fewer such disputes in the past, reflected a more aggressive stance from House Republicans.
Democrats oppose overall spending levels in the Republican-authored House spending bill, which are lower than stated in the debt-limit agreement House Republicans reached with President Joe Biden. But the Democrats are also extremely 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 the Bill to fund the Department of the Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency “Shove the MAGA culture wars down the throats of the American people,” House Committee ranking member Jim McGovern, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said on the floor Thursday.
The Transportation-HUD bill, whose vote was postponed until the week of November 6, contains a controversial provision Block expenses to three specific LGBTQ community centers in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. The language was adopted in a tense committee meeting in July that was marked by accusations of hatred and bigotry from Democrats.
In a statement, Democratic Leader Katherine Clark of Massachusetts called the provision “one of the most brazen culture war moves of this Congress.”
Spokespeople for House Budget Committee Chairman Kay Granger, a Republican from Texas, and Transportation-HUD Subcommittee Chairman Tom Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Friday.
The Transportation-HUD bill and the Interior bill would also block funding for LGBTQ pride flags in the departments and agencies covered by the bills and include a provision prohibiting disciplinary action against those who violate the law out of “sincerely held religious beliefs.” same-sex marriage act.
The bill to fund the Interior Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and similar agencies, which the House of Representatives passed along party lines on Friday 213-203 votescontains provisions blocking funding the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of the American Latino, various diversity programs and the promotion of critical race theory. Congress approved the museum in 2020, which aims to celebrate 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 in the culture war
Partisan provisions in spending bills are nothing fresh, said former U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, a Pennsylvania Republican who served on the House Budget Committee from 2011 until his retirement in 2018.
In general, however, they appear more often in bills related to health care, labor, education and homeland security expenses.
Bills to fund military construction and the departments of Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Energy “tend not to have as many bad proposals,” Dent told States Newsroom, citing partisan politics.
Republican amendments to limit spending viewed as wasteful are “not uncommon” but generally do not address cultural issues, he said.
The granular nature of some provisions appears to be more targeted than in years past, said Sonya Acosta, senior housing policy analyst at the liberal think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
“It is nothing new for members of Congress to pursue anti-LGBTQ policies,” Acosta said. “But making them so tiny seems different.”
Appropriators, widely viewed as moderates in Congress who need to compromise, are writing 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 the appropriators to write bills that we knew could never become law. But it’s a wink and a nod: ‘Okay, we’re going to throw this piece of trash out of the house and get where we want to end up, but we have to go through this process.'”
Environmental justice in sight
In another example, an amendment to the Interior Environment Act proposed by Texas Republican Chip Roy would block funding for environmental justice programs.
Bidens Justice40 Initiative has sought to spend 40% of certain environmental and climate finance in disadvantaged communities 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 that target communities of color.
Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Maine Democrat and ranking member on the Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, responded that undesirable sites such as landfills, incinerators and radioactive waste storage are often built in low-income communities.
Environmental justice initiatives aim to reverse this historical discrimination, which has resulted in communities experiencing lower property values, higher health care costs and shorter lifespans, she said.
“Why should my colleagues seek to fund any effort to improve the lives of people in rural and low-income communities?” Pingree said. “I’m sorry, but it’s just another attempt to implement an extreme agenda to attack minority groups at all costs and return the US to a time when environmental discrimination was the norm.”
The House of Representatives adopted Roy’s amendment on a vote of 212 to 204. Republicans Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon and Fitzpatrick joined all Democrats present in voting against the adoption.
The bill also included a provision blocking funding “that promotes or advances critical race theory,” an academic field commonly used in higher education that has nonetheless become a target of social conservatives who fear it is setting an example represents reverse racism being taught to teenage students.
The bill includes some funding for the Bureau of Indian Education, which provides reservation support to schools. Another spending proposal for education, labor, and health and social services also includes BIE funding.
Senate influence
Spending bills are typically passed by the leaders of each party in the House and Senate, Dent said.
Because of the nature of each chamber — and the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passing legislation — the House version typically contains more partisan provisions that are removed from the final product. The Senate version is generally more bipartisan from the start, giving that chamber the upper hand in negotiations, Dent said.
“Whatever bill crosses the finish line will not have these very contentious policymakers because they cannot reach a bipartisan consensus in the Senate that allows for 60 votes,” he said.
Dent, who was considered a moderate during his time in office 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 are conducting this exercise to appease, appease and appease this far-right group that did not support the budget deal anyway,” he said. “All this time and effort to appease people who aren’t going to end up voting for the bill anyway.”
But including such provisions in the House housing fund allocation bill still has consequences for LGBTQ people, Acosta said.
“LGBTQ people experience homelessness at higher rates,” she said. “And that’s partly because of the hiring that’s now being encouraged at the federal level. And that will only exacerbate the problems on the ground.”
Acosta added that this could make LGBTQ people feel less comfortable seeking services.
“Even if it’s just news,” she said. “This message is incredibly harmful and counterproductive.”
