House Rejects Conditions on U.S.-Backed Art Works

The House on Wednesday rejected an attempt by California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Lomita) to restrict federal funds for controversial works of art in a vote he sought to portray as a referendum on pornography.

Rohrabacher sought to insert the restrictions in an appropriations bill for the National Endowment for the Arts, but the move was rebuffed 264 to 153, largely along party lines.

“I think it’s a resounding vote against censorship,” said veteran Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), a strong supporter of the NEA who led the floor fight against the restrictions.

After the voting Rohrabacher, a former speech writer for the Ronald Reagan Administration, said: “We’ve lost one battle. Now the American people are going to decide who was right. . . . I think there is going to be justifiable outrage throughout the country.”

Art Content at Issue

Wednesday’s vote was the latest skirmish in a still-unsettled battle over to what extent the NEA and other federal agencies should police the content of projects they support.

The Senate earlier this summer included in an NEA appropriations bill an amendment, submitted by conservative Sen. Jesse A. Helms (R-N.C.), that would prohibit federal support of obscene, indecent, sacrilegious or racist art projects. Rohrabacher wanted the House to instruct its delegates to a House-Senate conference committee to adopt the Helms amendment in the final draft of the appropriations bill.

Instead, the House voted to instruct the conferees to “address the concerns of the Helms amendment” in the deliberations. That motion, offered by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) and approved 410 to 3, also directs the conferees to include language requiring lobbyists to inform federal agencies of whether federal funds are used to support any of their lobbying activities.

Controversial Examples

The Senate passed the Helms amendment amid a firestorm of criticism, after it was disclosed that the NEA had spent $45,000 on separate projects that involved homoerotic and sadomasochistic photography by artist Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano’s photograph of a crucifix immersed in a jar of urine.

The debate Wednesday often turned loud and acrimonious.

Responding to complaints that the Helms amendment is too vague to be enforceable, Rohrabacher said: “If there are some in this hall who have trouble understanding this clear and direct language, I am sure there are voters in this country who will be happy to explain it to them in the next election.”