Frohnmayer’s NEA Tenure in Question : Arts: Some House Republicans say his failure to deal with the endowment’s problems effectively has compromised his leadership.

A key Republican congressman is to meet with National Endowment for the Arts Chairman John E. Frohnmayer today to discuss content control of artworks funded by the NEA, amid indications that the arts agency’s political crisis may be leading to calls for Frohnmayer’s departure.

There was no public outpouring of sentiment on Monday advocating Frohnmayer’s removal from the post, which he assumed only last October. However, congressional sources said there appeared to be growing fear among House Republicans that the chairman’s inability to contain a series of administrative problems within the NEA and to resolve its ongoing political difficulties may be starting to take their toll.

At the arts endowment, meanwhile, Frohnmayer made a series of internal administrative moves apparently designed to blunt the effects of a months-long inability to fill three top jobs in the endowment administration and to quickly counteract the ouster last week of Alvin S. Felzenberg, the NEA’s No. 2 administrator since just Feb. 1.

Scheduling of today’s meeting was disclosed by Rep. Paul Henry (R-Mich.), an influential member of the House subcommittee that is grappling with an attempt to renew the NEA’s legislative mandate. The situation was plunged into uncertainty last week when the White House floated an ambiguous option plan in which the legislative reauthorization would be for one year or three years--not the five-year term still officially under discussion.

Henry has been a key member of the subcommittee because he has vigorously attacked attempts by conservatives to abolish the NEA. Henry has also insisted that Frohnmayer and NEA allies accept changes in the endowment’s enabling law to spell out kinds of art that are appropriate for federal support.

In a telephone interview Monday, Henry--for the first time--linked the continued impasse over what he characterized as appropriate regulatory language to Frohnmayer’s continuing tenure in office. Henry said he was concerned that if the NEA chairman has not joined in a Republican initiative to draft NEA art content-control language by the end of the week, the beleaguered NEA chairman will be greeted with a series of public calls for his ouster by House Republicans.

“I will say that, every day that the chairman refuses to take a forthright stand on the distinction between censorship and public sponsorship (of art), he is hurting the cause of the NEA rather than assisting it,” said Henry of Frohnmayer’s heretofore consistent refusal to endorse language restricting the content of NEA-funded art. Frohnmayer has campaigned against repetition of a successful congressional effort last year to attach language banning funding obscene work that does not meet high standards of artistic excellence.

“I would say that if we go through this week and there is no movement on his part,” said Henry of Frohnmayer, “then there will be some likelihood that people will be inclined to give public voice to their growing frustrations” with calls for Frohnmayer’s replacement. “I might be one of them,” Henry said.

A White House spokeswoman said President Bush continues to have high regard for Frohnmayer and that the NEA chief’s job was not in danger.

Henry declined to identify other likely participants in any campaign to displace Frohnmayer, but congressional sources said Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio) has been increasingly impatient with the situation, and concerned with the political damage being inflicted by conservative NEA opponents on House Republicans who must run for reelection in November.

Regula said he was not part of any movement to depose Frohnmayer at the moment. But, he said, the NEA chairman could soon find his tenure threatened if the situation remains out of control.

Other House Republicans were more supportive. “Frohnmayer is not the problem. Congress is the problem,” said Rep. Fred Grandy (R-Iowa), a former television and stage actor. “The artistry of some of the demagoguery (in Congress over the NEA issue) is so good they ought to apply to the NEA for funding themselves.”

“I think everybody’s very nervous about the situation,” said a top aide to a liberal Democratic congressman identified as a key NEA supporter. “Right now, if Frohnmayer goes down, at least he goes down fighting the good fight. It has certainly turned out that this appointment was no plum.”

Frohnmayer did not return calls seeking his comments on the meeting with Henry or other aspects of the situation, but the NEA confirmed he has a series of meetings with congressmen today.

Felzenberg is technically still an NEA employee as he awaits a White House move to place him in another federal agency. But the clash between the two men has begun to take a toll on internal morale within the arts agency. The two have been estranged in a clash of professional style and priorities for the endowment. NEA sources have said they seldom communicated fully and seldom even spoke.

Meanwhile, endowment sources confirmed that Frohnmayer had made four personnel moves in the last few days, apparently an attempt to stabilize the endowment’s increasingly difficult internal dynamics. He named Selina Ottum, currently the NEA’s deputy chairman for public partnership, to take over almost all of Felzenberg’s responsibilities as senior deputy chairman of the NEA. Ottum and Frohnmayer have a long-time association dating to Portland, Ore., where they both were active in arts causes.

At the same time, Frohnmayer displaced Ana Steele, a 25-year veteran of the arts agency who had been acting deputy chairman for programs and replaced her--also on an acting basis--with Randy McAusland, now director of the NEA’s design arts program. Frohnmayer also hired David O’Fallon, a University of Minnesota arts administration expert, as the NEA’s new director of arts-in-education.

In recent weeks, Frohnmayer has held as many as a dozen meetings with the NEA’s 14 program directors, demanding that they produce a plan to completely restructure the agency. Over the weekend and Monday morning, NEA sources said the restructuring in question appeared to be taking the form of an arts endowment that would have just four major program elements--down from about 15 now.

Frohnmayer has told the program directors the restructuring is essential to the NEA’s political survival. Last week, Frohnmayer reportedly told the officials he was under pressure to deliver a detailed restructuring plan to the White House. The pressures are thought to emanate from the growing impatience of some administration officials with the longevity and heated nature of the 14-month-old NEA crisis.