Dem again seeks vote for LGBT measure

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) is again pushing to add a measure to prevent federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity to another spending bill slated for the House floor this week.

House GOP leaders blocked a vote on Maloney’s amendment last week, only two days after a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

The same outcome is likely again this week, as the House considers a spending bill for the Treasury Department and other financial regulatory agencies.

{mosads}The House Rules Committee, which decides how legislation is considered on the floor, will meet on Tuesday to determine which amendments to the spending bill will get votes.

Votes on Maloney’s measure last month led Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to start limiting which amendments to appropriations bills can get floor time.

Maloney’s amendment nearly passed the first time it was offered — to a Department of Veterans Affairs spending bill — but it ultimately failed by a single vote after House GOP leaders pressured some in their party to change their votes.

Two weeks later, the House adopted Maloney’s amendment to an Energy Department appropriations bill after 43 Republicans joined with Democrats to support it. 

Between Democrats who opposed the underlying bill’s spending levels and Republicans who objected to Maloney’s amendment, support for final passage collapsed on the House floor the next day.

Majority leadership usually has tight control over how bills are considered in the House. But annual appropriations bills had been the exception under GOP control since 2011, until Ryan began clamping down on what had been an open process.

Maloney, one of six openly gay lawmakers serving in the House, has nonetheless continued offering his amendment to subsequent spending bills.

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) last week called on Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to allow a vote on Maloney’s amendment, arguing that permitting its passage would send a message of solidarity with the LGBT community after the Orlando massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

“To the extent that we allow discrimination or do not prevent discrimination, I suggest respectfully that we, in a way, convey that it is OK to discriminate, it is OK to not like these people, whoever these people are, whether they be African-Americans, whether they be LGBT, whether they be people born in another land,” Hoyer said. “It is not OK, and I deeply regret that we don’t allow the House to work its will.”

McCarthy responded by noting that the House Rules Committee allowed debate on 75 amendments to a Defense Department spending bill last week, though Maloney’s wasn’t among them.

“This is probably one of the most open, structured rules we have ever had,” McCarthy said.

Hoyer dismissed the notion that the quantity of amendments negated the content of Maloney’s proposal.

“It is not about whether we have had 1,000 amendments or five amendments or 700 amendments,” Hoyer said. “We think it is important for Congress to go on record as saying that we are against discrimination in that regard.”

This week’s spending bill will, however, likely include debates over restricting the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Multiple House Republicans have submitted amendments to eliminate or reduce the IRS commissioner’s salary and prevent any senior executives from receiving bonuses. Such measures come as House Republicans weigh staging a floor vote to impeach IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.