Obama selects Jim Leach for NEH

President Obama is now two-for-two in making somewhat unorthodox choices for the top spots in the agencies that help set and fund the nation’s cultural agenda. After recently tapping Rocco Landesman, a Broadway producer and theater owner, to head the National Endowment for the Arts, Obama on Wednesday picked a longtime former Republican congressman, Jim Leach of Iowa, to head the National Endowment for the Humanities.

“I don’t look at it as a partisan circumstance at all,” Leach said when reached at Princeton University, where since 2007 he has been a professor of public and international affairs.

In a statement, Obama described Leach as “a valued and dedicated public servant” who can carry on the NEH’s “vital mission of . . . giving the American public access to the rich resources of our culture.”

If confirmed by the Senate, Leach, 66, would succeed Bruce Cole, a former Indiana University art historian who served seven years after his 2001 appointment by President George W. Bush, making him the longest-tenured chairman the humanities endowment has had since it was created in 1965. Carole M. Watson is serving as interim director of the $155-million-a-year agency, whose grant-making casts a wide net in backing researchers, authors, documentary filmmakers, exhibitions and education in history, literature and arts.

“I’m a great respecter of conservative values as well as liberal values, but they have to be understood to be appreciated,” Leach said. “The role of the NEH is to provide perspective, and perspective is the most difficult thing to apply to the events of the day.”

Asked whether he would push to increase funding for what, by federal standards, is a minuscule agency, Leach said he “will be supporting the administration” in its budgeting decisions. But he said “the arts and humanities are fundamental to our society, particularly in difficult times. In the Great Depression . . . we spent far more on the arts and humanities, relative to [national economic output] than we do today. Nothing is more important to understanding what’s happening in society, particularly in a fast-changing world.”

Obama has proposed increasing NEH funding to $171.3 million in 2010, a bigger boost than he’s seeking for the NEA, which would increase from $155 million to $161.3 million.

If he assumes the post in Washington, Leach, who still has a home in Iowa City, would return to familiar turf: He served 30 years in Congress before joining Princeton’s faculty.

In 2006, Leach received the Congressional Arts Leadership Award conferred annually by the Americans for the Arts advocacy group and the U.S. Conference of Mayors. They cited him as an advocate for increased arts and humanities funding, and as a co-sponsor of legislation -- still not passed -- that would allow artists to take larger tax deductions for works they donate to museums and charities.

“He’s a savvy legislative strategist, which is very valuable, and besides political knowledge he has an understanding and love of the humanities and the arts,” said Robert Lynch, president of Americans for the Arts.

--

mike.boehm@latimes.com