US House GOP bans earmarks for certain nonprofits, after controversy over LGBTQ projects • Pennsylvania Capital-Star

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives will no longer be able to request earmarked funding for some nonprofits, following an eligibility change made Thursday by the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee.

The change is related to the shake-up during the government’s annual funding process last year, when majority Republicans in the House of Representatives included three LGBTQ projects in one of their spending bills and then cut that funding during a tense public increase.

The eligibility change in the House of Representatives affects nonprofits covered by the Economic Development Initiative bill within the Transportation-HUD spending bill, one of dozens of funding bills written by congressional appropriators.

Speaker Tom Cole’s new guidelines do not apply to lawmakers seeking funding for nonprofits in the other bills eligible for earmark requests.

It also has no bearing on how the earmarking process will work on the Senate side. That means there is still an opportunity for lawmakers to secure funding for LGBTQ projects if they decide to make these requests and the Senate spending panel chooses to include it in its version of the bill.

“Like previous reforms passed in this Congress, this change is intended to ensure that projects are consistent with the community development goals of the federal program,” Cole wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter.

Cole, a Republican from Oklahoma, became chairman of the powerful spending panel earlier this month after the former chairman, Kay Granger of Texas, decided to leave that leadership post early.

Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the committee, released a written statement saying the change “is a seismic shift, as nearly half of all House-funded EDI projects by 2024 targeted on nonprofit recipients.”

“To cater to the extreme Republican wing, Republicans are trying to eradicate all assistance for the LGBTQ+ community,” DeLauro wrote. “They are willing to hurt their own religious organizations, seniors and veterans.”

The change in eligibility, she wrote, would bar House lawmakers from applying for funding for “YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs and other groups vital to our communities.”

Three LGBTQ projects

House Republicans originally included $1.8 million in funding for the William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia, $970,000 for the LGBT Center of Greater Reading’s Transitional Housing Program in Pennsylvania and $850,000 for affordable senior housing at LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc. in Massachusetts in their Transportation-HUD spending bill released last summer.

All three projects were requested by parliamentarians, the first step in the earmarking process.

The projects were funded from the Economic Development Initiatives Account, which at the time was eligible for earmarks in the Housing and Urban Development section of the Transportation and HUD spending bill.

Cole, then chairman of that subcommittee, removed the three projects through a so-called manager amendment that made numerous changes to the bill during committee debate.

LGBTQ project funding in two states stripped from spending bill by US House of Representatives Republicans

Although the managers’ amendments are standard and typically bipartisan, the removal angered Democrats on the committee, who urged their Republican colleagues to reconsider during a heated debate last July.

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan said at the time that cutting off the funding was an insult to LGBTQ Americans, as well as their families and allies.

“The fact that you would take away members’ earmarks simply because they refer to the LGBTQI+ community is insane and bigoted,” Pocan said in July.

The latest set of spending bills that Congress passed in March, after negotiations between the House and Senate, would include $1 million for the William Way LGBT Center in Philadelphia, as Pennsylvania senators also requested funding. But that was removed from the bill after it was released, creating a confusing blame game among lawmakers.

The final Labor and Education spending bill, passed in March, included $850,000 for LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc., MA, for older adult services within the Administration for Community Living account within the HHS portion of the bill.

That funding in Massachusetts was stripped from the House Transportation-HUD bill by Republican lawmakers, but was also requested by the state’s two senators and included in the Labor-HHS-Education spending bill within that chamber.

That latest spending bill also included $400,000 for the Garden State Equality Education Fund, Inc., for trauma-informed strategies to support LGBTQ+ youth in New Jersey, within the Department of Education’s Innovation and Improvement account.

That funding was never requested by House lawmakers, but it was requested by the state’s two senators.