Despite pledge of unity, ideology overtakes spending bills

The unofficial moratorium on bringing up divisive issues on fiscal 2002 spending bills ended abruptly Tuesday, when the House voted down an amendment by Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., that would have barred the District of Columbia from using its own funds to implement its controversial domestic-partners benefits law.

The language blocking implementation of the law had been in previous versions of the District of Columbia appropriations bill, but was left out at committee this year. After a debate that included Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Texas, speaking in favor of the amendment, the House voted 226-194 not to put the language back in the bill.

But the debate itself signals that the remainder of the budget battles will be--if not business as usual--not without the expected fights.

Weldon said leaders had not discouraged him from offering the amendment, although "there was discouragement to engage in too much debate."

And he insisted that it was not his amendment that broke the comity, but rather the committee's move to take the language out of the bill in the first place.

"For conservatives who want to go along with the comity, they should consider themselves directly warned," he said. "There are people who are not going to set their agendas aside," he added, particularly the gay and lesbian community that wanted the domestic partners ban out of the bill.

Weldon said he would act again if he finds it necessary. "What am I supposed to do, not show up? Park my brain for a week?"

It remains unclear if other amendments that were expected to be contentious will be offered. A spokesman for Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said his boss has not yet decided whether to offer planned language on the agriculture appropriations bill to allow limited reimportation of prescription drugs. But the spokesman noted that Dorgan "led by example" when he did not offer amendments as he had originally planned during the Senate's debate on the Treasury-Postal Service bill.

Similarly, Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., said "we haven't sorted out yet" what amendments, if any, Democrats might offer, particularly on the stem cell issue. Still, she said, "We'd obviously like to keep the controversy down."

But some fights are still likely.

"It would be unrealistic to expect that strongly held views on legislation would not be raised in areas that don't relate to our unity of purpose on terrorism or defense or intelligence," said House Appropriations member Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "If we didn't do anything contentious, we would be avoiding our responsibility to the people who elected us."