Congress OKs Content Curbs on Arts Funding : But Measure Does Not Entirely Bar Money for Shocking or Sacrilegious Works

The Senate approved and sent to President Bush on Saturday a bill that for the first time imposes content restrictions on federally funded art, but it does not completely rule out funding of shocking or sacrilegious works.

The legislation, which cleared the Senate by a vote of 91 to 6, represented a victory for arts community leaders in their long-running struggle with conservatives over what criteria the federal government should use in funding art, music, literature and dance.

Bush is expected to sign the bill, which also provides funds for the Interior Department and contains provisions to protect an endangered owl, restrict government lobbyists and limit preliminary oil leasing activity off the coast of California.

Helms’ Bid Rejected

By a vote of 62 to 35, the Senate rejected a last-ditch effort by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to set stricter limitations on the prerogatives of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities to fund lewd or sacrilegious works. It was the third time in a week that the Senate had defeated Helms on what has become a hotly debated free speech issue.

And even though Helms acknowledged he had been foiled by the intense lobbying of what he disdainfully called “the arts crowd,” he and like-minded senators did not give up easily.

As senators filed into the chamber to vote, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), a Helms ally, positioned himself at the door with some of the federally funded black-and-white photographs that provoked the uproar: Andres Serrano’s depiction of a cross in a bottle of urine and Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos of homosexual acts and sexual conduct by children.

Question of Judgment

The legislation states that no federal funds should be spent “to promote, disseminate or produce materials which in the judgment of the National Endowment for the Arts or the National Endowment for the Humanities may be considered obscene, including but not limited to depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children or individuals engaged in sex acts and which, when taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.”

While many senators portrayed it as a fair compromise between conservatives and the arts community, Helms said the language contains an enormous loophole--”so big you could drive 12 Mack trucks through it”--that allows endowment officials to determine what kind of art violates the statute. He said the loophole was unacceptable to him since officials involved in funding Serrano and Mapplethorpe refuse to acknowledge making a mistake.

‘Nothing More Than a Sop’

“It would prohibit nothing, absolutely nothing,” Helms declared. “It was nothing more than a sop to fool the American people into thinking that the liberal majority in Congress was actively willing to do something to stop federal funding of obscene material . . . . Any yo-yo can get himself a glass jar and fill it with urine and he can stick a crucifix in it and get $5,000, as one did whose name is Andres Serrano.”

Helms noted that Rep. Sidney R. Yates (D-Ill.), who was instrumental in weakening proposed restrictions on NEA during negotiations between the House and Senate, had recently received a standing ovation at an arts community event for his success in defeating Helms.

Indeed, many arts community leaders embraced the compromise, even though some legal experts question whether it is constitutional and gay activists fear it might prompt a backlash against all art dealing with homosexual subjects.

Helms, who met last week with incoming NEA Chairman John E. Frohnmayer, said he was convinced that the newly appointed endowment chief would not fund anything objectionable to Congress. But he said he could not trust that Frohnmayer’s successors would take the same attitude.

Wording of Helms’ Provision

The substitute provision proposed by Helms and rejected by the Senate would have outlawed the expenditure of federal funds “to promote, disseminate or produce materials that are obscene or that depict or describe in a patently offensive way, sexual or excretory activities or organs, including but not limited to obscene depictions of sadomasochism, homoeroticism, the sexual exploitation of children or individuals engaged in sexual intercourse.”

Helms said his language was based on Supreme Court definitions of what constitutes obscenity and thus gave the NEA no discretion in interpreting the law. Opponents said it would be impractical to take the decision out of the hands of the NEA.

Although it has frequently been debated as a First Amendment issue, most senators accepted Helms’ argument that the refusal of the government to fund offensive artworks does nothing to abridge the free expression of artists, who still can produce these works with private funds.

But Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said the new restrictions represented the first step in a campaign by conservative “know-nothings” to abolish federal support for the arts.

Sets Up Panel

The legislation establishes a 12-member commission to review the standards and grant-making procedures of the endowments. It also requires the endowments to notify Congress before making any grants to the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem, N.C., and the Institute for Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, both of which presented controversial art shows last year.

The reaction within the arts community to the Senate vote was cautious.

“I hope it is over,” said Frohnmayer, the Portland, Ore., lawyer who takes over Tuesday as the national endowment’s new chairman.

Even if Helms abandons his efforts to win legislative approval of more restrictive directives, Frohnmayer said the Senate vote does not signal a final resolution of the controversy over the content of federally funded art.

“It’s obviously something we’re going to have to deal with over the coming years,” he said. “I also hope, as I have told Sen. Helms, that what this really boils down to in the end is judgment of those who are in charge of the NEA. I now would hope that they would give me an opportunity to exercise that judgment.”

Future of Spotted Owl

Although the limitation on arts funding dominated debate over the Interior Department funding bill, it was by no means the only important provision in the legislation. The measure also affects the future of the endangered spotted owl, sets restrictions on lobbyists seeking money from the federal government and calls for a presidential task force to look into the environmental concerns involved in oil and gas drilling off the coast of California.

Sen. Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore.) said the bill’s provisions governing timberland inhabited by the spotted owl reflect a 50-50 compromise that does not fully satisfy either environmentalists or timber interests, which claim that court orders protecting wildlife habitats are destroying their industry.

The issue arose when the Senate voted to free timber sales in Washington and Oregon from court-ordered bans on logging. Under the compromise, Congress agreed to reduce the allowable level of timber sales somewhat and require environmentalists to chose which of the timber sales now blocked by the courts will be allowed to proceed.

Tied to HUD Scandal

The lobbying restrictions were authored originally by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.) in response to the scandal at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. They will require detailed reports to be filed by lobbyists and prohibit recipients of federal grants from using tax dollars to finance their lobbying efforts.

The provisions governing offshore drilling grew out of an effort by the House to place a moratorium on all activity leading up to the leasing of oil and gas tracts off the California coast. The compromise stipulates that no draft environmental impact statement on the proposed leasing can be issued until five months after a presidential task force releases the results of an inquiry into what effect drilling would have on the environment.

Staff writer Allan Parachini in Los Angeles contributed to this story.