Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, accused conservatives of being legislative “terrorists” during a tense hearing on funding for transportation and housing programs Tuesday.
Fiery insults and expletives began to fly during the hearing shortly after Republicans presented an amendment Democrats say would strip funding for projects that would benefit the LGBTQ community.
“This is today, saying Congress is going to take away the earmarks of your colleagues of your members who want to protect people and housing, and you put it into this amendment you make a good person, who’s the subcommittee chair, have to put his name on this shit,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who serves on the committee and also identifies as gay, said.
“This is below where we all are,” Pocan told members on the committee. “We have to have more respect and dignity for our constituents, which trust me you have many LGBTQI constituents.”
DeLauro drew attention at the hearing after labeling some Republicans as “terrorists,” as Democrats say the amendment would unfairly pull community project funding for some LGBTQ projects.
DeLauro detailed funding for several community projects that she said are “being summarily dismissed” under the amendment, which was later adopted along partisan lines. They include, the congresswoman said, the LGBT Center of Greater Reading in Pennsylvania, funding to expand housing for LGBTQ seniors, and the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia.
“You are negotiating with terrorists,” DeLauro told Republicans. “Members on your side, I will continue to call out the harm you are doing in this process, both in what these bills propose to do and in your approach on how we treat one another.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who serves on the committee, called on the congresswoman’s words to be stricken shortly after.
Later in the hearing, Harris also called for insults leveled by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) to be stricken after she also said “the Republican Party doesn’t like gay people.”
After the committee returned from one of multiple recesses, Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-Mont.) pushed back against some of the Democratic criticisms and took aim at what he described as “political theater.”
Zinke alleged one of the centers provided counseling services for “hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgeries,” while adding: “So, the question is, should taxpayers pay for this? The answer is no.”
“Appropriation also should be appropriate. This has nothing to do with discrimination over a class of citizens or people or race, it has to do with an ideology and whether or not the taxpayers should have to pay for it,” he said.
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) said later in the hearing that the projects in question “were all deemed, by both parties, eligible under statutory law and under the rules of the guidance that our friends in the majority presented at the beginning of the process.”
“So, these three projects were now singled out, out of 2,680 as suddenly not ones that we want to do,” he said. “That’s .1 percent of the projects and what are the legal names, LGBTQ Senior Housing, Inc, Gay Community Center of Philadelphia, and the LGBT Center of Greater Reading.”
The back and forth Tuesday is the latest in a string of clashes to garner attention during this appropriations season, as both sides battle over spending cuts and GOP-backed proposals Democrats argue could impede progress across a wide range of issues, including reproductive rights and diversity initiatives.