NEA Appropriations Take Unusual Path : Arts: The House adds the entire text of a bill on extending the agency to a funding measure. Opposition led by Sen. Helms is likely.

Employing unusual parliamentary tactics, the House of Representatives voted Monday to attach provisions of a bill it had approved last week to renew the legal mandate of the National Endowment for the Arts to a separate measure that would fund the agency in fiscal 1991.

The 234-171 vote sends the bill to the Senate, which is expected to consider it later this week.

The provisions added to the appropriation bill contain no language barring specific kinds of art from being supported by the NEA--except for a general ban on funding of work that is judged obscene by a criminal court. The bill also includes an admonition to the arts endowment, however, to refrain from supporting “indecency” and art that does not “respect the diverse beliefs and values of the American public.”

The House action in Washington on Monday night was unusual because it took the entire text of the bill passed last Thursday, extending the NEA for three years, and added it to the 1991 appropriation measure. Rep. Jamie L. Whitten (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a veteran of half a century in Congress, said that he did not remember ever seeing such a parliamentary device.

In the Senate, the legislation is expected to face opposition from conservatives led by Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

The money bill passed Monday includes $180 million for the arts endowment. The bill is an omnibus measure that appropriates $14.5 billion for the Interior Department and other agencies.

Before approving the measure, the House voted down an amendment by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), that would have prohibited the NEA from supporting art inappropriate for a “general audience” or that was obscene or indecent. To establish indecency, the amendment would have relied on a U.S. Supreme Court case written to regulate radio and television broadcasting and never applied to other artistic media.

The unusual legislative tactic was proposed by Reps. E. Thomas Coleman (R-Mo.) and Pat Williams (D-Mont.), who argued that the move was necessary because of the logjam of money bills that face Congress as it rushes to adjourn.

Williams contended that the Senate, which has not yet taken up either an NEA reauthorization or appropriation bill, may not get to the reauthorization measure before Congress adjourns. Appropriations bills, however, are all likely to come to a vote since they must be passed to keep government agencies operating.

Williams said the amendment tactic was the only way to ensure that an NEA bill largely free of restrictions on artistic content reaches President Bush. “This will assure that something that the House wants will reach the President’s desk,” Williams said.