The Speaker of the House is threatening to lock down the amendment process after Democrats seized on annual spending bills to ensure protections for gay, lesbian, and transgender Americans.
Briefing reporters Thursday just minutes after an energy and water appropriations bill failed on the House floor, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) accused the legislative minority of “sabotaging” the process.
More than half of Ryan’s GOP caucus voted down the spending measure after Democrats on Wednesday night succeeded in affixing an amendment to the legislation that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating based on gender identity or sexual orientation.
Even with the amendment, nearly every Democrat voted against the underlying appropriation on Thursday morning—a maneuver that Ryan derided to the press.
“We let congress work its will,” he said. “Then the people who brought this amendment forward voted against the bill containing their amendment, which tells us this was about sabotaging appropriations.”
Ryan failed to mention that the Department of Energy spending bill also contained a number of contentious GOP-approved riders. One would seek to thwart the Obama administration’s actions against state-level bathroom discrimination laws; another would attempt to obstruct the Iran nuclear agreement—measures that would be tough for Democrats to swallow even with the inclusion of an anti-discrimination amendment.
Upon taking up the Speaker’s gavel last year, Ryan promised a return to regular order during appropriations—an open procedure by which spending bills are brought to the floor one-by-one and lawmakers from both parties are given an opportunity to amend them.
But he may be wavering on that commitment now, following a rocky start. The energy and water bill was only the second of twelve appropriations the House plans to take up.
A military construction and Veterans Affairs spending bill considered last week was nearly derailed after a similar move by Democrats to protect the LGBT community by amending the legislation. It was an embarrassing moment for GOP leadership, who held open the vote on the amendment to pressure seven Republicans to switch their votes to defeat it.
“We remain dedicated to working on this bill and on all of our appropriations bills,” Ryan said Thursday. He added, though, that after the Memorial Day recess, he would sit down with his caucus and have “a family discussion about how best to proceed so that the appropriations process cannot be sabotaged and derailed.”
The Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) told reporters earlier that blocking Democratic amendments to future spending bills “will be considered.”
