All Paul Ryan wanted Wednesday night was to appropriate some funds for energy and water spending: a quick and easy vote, bang the gavel, go home, and CrossFit hard enough to forget the Donald’s name.
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Democrats won an opening salvo late Wednesday when the House approved on a vote of 223 to 195 Maloney’s measure denying payment to federal contractors who discriminate against LGBT employees.
But it was Pelosi who led a charge by Democrats against a provision to protect North Carolina from retaliation by several federal agencies over the law requiring transgender people to use the restroom of their sex at birth.
Indiana GOP Reps. Todd Rokita and Larry Bucshon voted for the energy spending bill and against the Maloney amendment, although they voted a year ago to prohibit federal contractors from discriminating in hiring and employment.
The debate erupted last week when Republicans had to extend a floor vote by several minutes and convince a handful of members to change their votes in order to defeat a Democratic amendment to uphold President Obama’s 2014 gay rights executive order. As the vote was being tallied, the measure seemed as though it was headed toward passage, but then time was extended for voting and seven House Republicans changed their votes.
Conservatives angered by the inclusion of protections for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in an otherwise routine spending bill scuttled the measure Thursday.
This time, GOP leaders let members vote as they wished; about a dozen Republicans rethought their opposition and Maloney’s amendment made it through fairly easily.
According to the Post, Democrats are planning to weave these LGBT-rights skirmishes into a larger, Trump-themed narrative about the GOP as the party of intolerance.
The LGBT amendment was added Wednesday night, and on Thursday the bill failed 112-305. Southern Republicans were enraged and threatened to vote against the overall bill, forcing former House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to give up on the entire appropriations process to avoid an embarrassing failure.
In a statement after the vote, it said, “Republicans were right to oppose the bill, as it spent far too much and affirmed President Obama’s transgender agenda”.
That order added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes that are protected from discrimination by any organization receiving federal contracts.
But for House Republicans from deep-red districts, such floor fights are less “embarrassing” than they are politically useful.
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Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Thursday he is “disappointed” that the legislation failed, but said he plans to bring it back up again and to move forward with the rest of the appropriations process in the coming weeks. Both outcomes illustrate that even as Speaker Paul Ryan tries to focus the House on producing a governing agenda and taking care of essential work like funding the government, social issues can sidetrack lawmakers and produce uncomfortable clashes within the GOP.
