House fight over LGBT protections to continue

WASHINGTON — Democrats are vowing to continue to force votes over gay rights after a bitter showdown on the House floor last week that Speaker Paul Ryan said was partly the result of lawmakers being "misled" about what they were voting on.

At the center of the fight is arcane language Republicans added to a Defense authorization bill last week that never mentions gay rights, but that Democrats claim would effectively eliminate any workplace protections for gay and transgender people. Republicans say that's not what the language does; it simply reasserts existing protections for religious organizations to maintain the tenets of their faith while participating in federal grant programs.

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. That order added sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of classes that are protected from discrimination by any organization receiving federal contracts. Obama included protections for religious groups that are federal contractors, but Republicans said guidance from a federal contracting agency has led to confusion about the extent of those protections.

Democrats cried foul and said Republican leaders had twisted the House rules to prevent the chamber from passing the gay rights language.

Rep. Sean Maloney, D-N.Y., is preparing to reintroduce the Democratic amendment to uphold Obama's executive order, hoping to force another vote this week, this time on the Energy and Water spending bill. Maloney notes that two to three dozen Republicans have expressed support for his measure, enough to win a vote on the House floor.

Republicans "have to decide whether they want to keep rigging votes, in which case we won't be able to make the amendment, because they can rig the process again," Maloney said. "But if they have an open process, what we've shown is that we have the support and will win. There are only two choices here — keep rigging the votes and promote discrimination, or open up the process and let the House vote for equality."

Ryan said he would not block a vote on the Maloney amendment, but he is considering some changes in House rules to provide more clarity on what measures are being voted on. "There was a lot of confusion" during Thursday's vote, Ryan said. "A lot of folks didn't know what they were voting on," because there were several House votes all crammed in a series. In addition, "a bunch of members were misled as to what the amendment was," Ryan said. "A lot of people thought it was about bathrooms."

Ryan added that Republican leaders were also concerned that the Maloney amendment — offered on a larger bill approving spending for veterans and military construction projects — "was going to take down the bill ... there was a real concern this was going to jeopardize critical funding for the Veterans Administration and the military."

Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., sponsored the Defense bill language that kicked off this scuffle. That provision, added to a sweeping bill authorizing Defense Department programs, clarifies that for the purposes of grants and contracts, the federal government must provide religious organizations with protections and exemptions "consistent with" the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Russell said this language was needed because guidance from a federal contract office led to confusion about whether religious groups would be barred from contracts under Obama's executive order.

"This is not what is being characterized," Russell said in April when he added the language to the Defense bill. Russell said an obscure federal contracting agency had issued guidance spelling out protections for religious providers that created confusion, particularly for Defense Department contracts. "Organizations that have provided key and essential services to our military for decades now under the ambiguity have been forced to shut down operations."

But Maloney notes that the Civil Rights Act and the ADA have no reference to gender identity or sexual orientation. Restoring "religious liberty" provisions to that standard would eliminate all LGBT protections for federal contractors, he and other Democrats argue.

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that Democrats stand behind Maloney's effort to add the LGBT language, and she rejects any notion that Democrats were trying to add a "poison pill" that would bring down the VA spending bill. Pelosi said there has been an "epidemic of poison pills" Republicans have attached to spending bills, so it would be hypocritical for them to accuse Democrats of that.