Following a day of extraordinary arm-twisting, the House Thursday approved by one vote a rule on the fiscal 1998 Interior appropriations bill that guarantees the House bill includes funds to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts.
Voting 217-216, the House approved the rule, with Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., changing his vote at the last minute to give Republican NEA opponents a victory.
In a twist, Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., chairwoman of the congressional Member Organization for the Arts, did not vote because she had left town due to the death of her sister.
While it appeared Slaughter's vote was crucial, Republican sources said GOP leaders had at least two other Republicans they could have depended on to switch their votes.
The fate of the Interior rule was in doubt throughout the day, with a House GOP leadership aide saying shortly before it came to the floor that GOP leaders did not have the votes to pass the rule. In the end, 15 Republicans voted against the rule, while five Democrats voted for it.
Fourteen Republicans who signed a letter asking House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., to restore funding for the NEA eventually voted for the rule that allowed elimination of the arts agency.
Those 14 Republican members were Reps. Benjamin Gilman, James Walsh, and Sherwood Boehlert, all of New York; Nancy Johnson and Christopher Shays of Connecticut; Thomas Davis of Virginia; Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey; Scott Klug of Wisconsin; Mark Foley, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Clay Shaw of Florida; Jon Fox of Pennsylvania; Brian Bilbray of California; and Doug Bereuter of Nebraska.
The Interior bill included only $10 million in termination costs for the NEA, and even that $10 million was not protected from being eliminated by a point of order.
The rule also allowed Rep. Vernon Ehlers, R-Mich., to offer a compromise amendment that would provide $80 million in arts funds to states and school districts, which is expected to be debated today.
McHugh defended his 11th-hour switch, telling reporters that at the last minute, he was assured by Gingrich and other GOP leaders that if the Ehlers amendment was included in the eventual conference agreement, it would spell out a distribution formula for the state grants.
Explaining how GOP leaders pulled out the win, Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, told reporters that he was able to convince Republicans that the debate should center on the substance of the Interior bill.
Rules Chairman Gerald B.H. Solomon, R-N.Y., called the Ehlers plan "an acceptable compromise for many members." And Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, said the Ehlers amendment would take control of federal arts funds out of the hands of an "elite group."
However, Rep. Amo Houghton, R-N.Y., said the rule "is a bad rule and it should be defeated." And Rep. Michael Forbes, R-N.Y., said, "This is a very sad day for me as a Republican in this House."
Democrats were clearly angry.
House Appropriations ranking member David Obey, D-Wis., charged that the decision not to allow Interior Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Sidney Yates, D-Ill., to offer his NEA amendment was "a sham, a fraud, a cynical abuse of power."
The White House issued a statement saying the administration "strongly opposes" both the reduction in NEA funding and the Ehlers amendment.
Forbes, a leader of the group of Republican NEA supporters, said GOP members may look for "procedural things we can do" on the bill, although he was not specific. He added GOP leaders "did what they are supposed to do in the majority, make a case you can't refuse."
Forbes said that some Republican NEA supporters could not support the Ehlers plan.
Notably, House Appropriations Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., who had said he believed Yates should have been able to offer his amendment, did not speak on the rule, although he voted for it.
Asked if he still believed Yates should have been given the opportunity, Livingston said, "I'd only get in trouble if I answered that."
Another problem for the bill emerged later in the evening, an amendment to be offered by Reps. John Edward Porter, R-Ill., and Joseph Kennedy, D-Mass., to cut the U.S. Forest Service construction account from the committee-passed level of $89 million to $47.5 million, eliminating the agency's program for building and maintaining roads on federal forest land used by timber companies.
DeLay told CongressDaily before the vote that this was "going to be a tough one."
Rep. Norman Dicks, D-Wash., offered a compromise amendment that would restore half the funding cut by the Porter-Kennedy proposal, setting off an intense debate late Thursday.
"I don't care for the Dicks amendment a whole lot ... but [the Porter-Kennedy] amendment is devastating," said Rep. Mike Parker, R-Miss.
The Dicks amendment passed on a 211-209 vote.
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