Senate Votes to Keep Arts Agency Alive, OKs $100 Million in Funding

WASHINGTON — Two months after the House voted to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, the Senate rode to its rescue Thursday by approving $100 million to keep the embattled agency alive for at least another year.

Still, the conflict between the two chambers leaves in doubt exactly how the NEA will operate and with how much money.

The Senate’s recommended $100-million funding for the NEA was part of the $13.8-billion Interior Department spending bill that was approved late Thursday night, 93 to 3.

Earlier Thursday, senators had handily rejected the last of several attempts to eliminate the 32-year-old endowment or parcel out its money to the states in block grants, a move that NEA backers say would seriously undermine the agency.

NEA backers hailed the Senate for its actions. “The arts endowment and the citizens of this country won a clear victory today,” NEA Chairwoman Jane Alexander said.

She added that the Senate’s rejection during a debate that began Wednesday of various amendments aimed at killing the endowment or dramatically altering its operations “shows that the misinformation campaign against the agency was overwhelmed by the true picture of NEA’s national leadership role in providing access to the arts in America.”

But it remained to be seen exactly how the NEA will fare as the battle moves to a conference committee, where the House and Senate’s conflicting bills will be reconciled.

Some conferees are expected to try again to divert all or part of the NEA’s budget to the states in the form of block grants, effectively wiping out or shriveling a national role that many credit for the quadrupling of dance troupes, opera companies and other arts endeavors since it was founded in 1965.

The Senate’s funding figure would increase the NEA’s current budget by about $500,000, but endowment supporters are now less worried about the dollars than the restrictions Congress might impose on how the money is used.

“Thirty-five percent of our money already goes to the states. Increasing the formula would eviscerate the federal role. That is what will cripple us,” said NEA spokeswoman Cherie Simon.

Administration advisors have recommended that President Clinton veto any legislation that would increase the share of NEA money that goes to block grants. Clinton had earlier threatened to veto any attempt to abolish the endowment. More than 21% of the endowment’s $81 million in grants during the last year went to New York, where most of the nation’s arts are based. But officials note that some of the money initially sent to New York then was funneled around the country through sub-grants.

California got about 10% of the endowment money, which helped fund works large and small, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic Assn., the Jazz Tap Ensemble and We Tell Stories Inc., which is tailored for children.

The move to abolish the agency began nearly a decade ago with a fury over NEA-funded works seen by some as obscene and sacrilegious. While efforts led by the House have failed to wipe out the NEA, its budget has been whittled from a onetime high of $176 million.

Conservative senators took a stab at extinguishing the endowment altogether, saying U.S. taxpayers should not be forced to pay for art that “offends their standards of decency.”

That effort failed soundly, as did the others, with two-thirds of the Senate consistently voting to preserve the NEA as is.

But it was hardly the time for NEA officials to relax as the conference committee prepares to hammer out a final bill, and lobbying of the panel’s prospective members already has begun. “People in the country are saying this is not a frivolous investment,” said Rep. Louise McIntosh Slaughter (D-N.Y.), who led an unsuccessful fight to save the NEA in the House.

The NEA is already being criticized for a reluctance to fund anything but “safe” art for fear of further jeopardizing its survival. The endowment has lately imposed some self-restrictions, cutting staff and insisting upon detailed grant requests that hold no embarrassing surprises it might later be forced to explain to Congress.

“I don’t think the NEA is a shell of what it was now. But I am fearful it will become that if they block grant a significant amount of funds [to states], leaving no critical mass of funds at the national level to be able to take on major projects that transcend state boundaries,” said Nina Ozlu, spokeswoman for Americans for the Arts.

Much of the attack on the endowment in the Senate centered on past mistakes in judgment, some of them years old. Seeking to wipe out the NEA funds, Sen. John Ashcroft (R-Mo.) held up a one-word poem that read: “lighght,” and said the NEA had paid $1,500 for it, even though nobody could figure out what it meant. (Backers noted that the NEA only paid $750, but conceded they didn’t know what the calligraphic work meant, either.)

Proponents noted that out of 100,000 grants the NEA has given in its lifetime, only 40 were controversial, and faulted opponents for failing to recognize the agency’s success in making art more accessible throughout the nation.

In an impassioned defense of federal arts funding, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) acknowledged the endowment has exercised poor judgment at times, but should be forgiven an occasional mistake.

“If one postman is obnoxious as he or she delivers the mail, we don’t stop delivering the mail. . . . If one military officer sexually harasses another, we don’t shut down the military,” Boxer said. “There are mistakes made in life, but we don’t just take a meat ax to the problem.”

Times staff writer Steve Gray contributed to this story.