Rohrabacher Defeated in Arts Funding Battle

Orange County Republican Congressman Dana Rohrabacher on Wednesday lost a hard-fought campaign to persuade the House to restrict federal support of controversial artwork in a vote that he had portrayed as a referendum on federal funding of pornography.

By a vote of 264 to 153, largely along party lines, the House rejected Rohrabacher’s procedural effort to insert in an appropriations bill for the National Endowment for the Arts language that would prohibit funding of “obscene or indecent” artwork.

“I think it’s a resounding vote against censorship,” said Rep. Stephen R. Yates (D-Ill.), a strong NEA supporter who led the floor fight against Rohrabacher, a Lomita Republican.

Rohrabacher, a former speech writer for Ronald Reagan and a first-term congressman, said after the vote: “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.”

Wednesday’s House vote was the latest skirmish in a still-unsettled battle over the degree to which the NEA and other federal agencies that support the arts should police the content of the projects they pay for. Arts groups around the country have denounced attempts to restrict federal funding, calling it government censorship.

The Senate earlier this summer included in an NEA appropriations bill an amendment by conservative Sen. Jesse R. Helms (R-N.C.) seeking to bar federal funding of obscene, indecent, sacrilegious or racist art. The House had not included such language in its version of the Interior Department’s appropriations bill, which funds the NEA.

Rohrabacher wanted the House to tell its representatives to a House-Senate conference committee to adopt the Helms amendment in its final draft of the Interior appropriations measure.

Instead, the House approved a motion by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) to instruct its conferees to “address the concerns of the Helms amendment” during their deliberations. The Regula motion, approved on a vote of 410 to 3, also instructed conferees to include language requiring lobbyists of federal agencies to disclose whether federal funds are used to support any of their lobbying activities.

Regula, Yates and others argued that argued that the Helms language would prove unworkable because it would apply to all agencies and projects funded through the Interior Department, not just the NEA.

Likely to Arise Again

The issue is considered likely to surface again after the conference committee submits its report to the House and Senate.

The Senate passed the Helms amendment July 26 amid a firestorm of congressional criticism that erupted when it was disclosed that the NEA had spent $45,000 on separate projects that included homoerotic and sadomasochistic photographs by artist Robert Mapplethorpe and Adres Serrano’s photograph of a crucifix immersed in a jar of his own urine. The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.

Over the summer congressional recess, Rohrabacher enlisted a host of conservative organizations in a letter-writing campaign to House members to persuade them that they would be held accountable at the polls for their vote on the Helms question.

The debate Wednesday often turned loud and acrimonious.

Responding to complaints that the Helms language is too vague to be enforced, Rohrabacher echoed the theme of the summer: “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.”

Minutes later, an angry Rep. E. Thomas Coleman (R-Mo.) shot back: “Anybody who tries to characterize my vote as being in favor of obscenity and pornography, you deal with me off the floor on that one.”

Thought Police

Rep. Les AuCoin (D-Ore.) asked Rohrabacher: “Who will be the thought police?” He then quoted a letter from a constituent in which the writer asked: “I can’t help wondering if even the Bible could pass the Helms test.”

Orange County Reps. William E. Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) each took the floor to support Rohrabacher.