AEGiS-GMHC: Washington watch: The Sharp Right Turn

Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1995. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Washington watch: The Sharp Right Turn

Treatment Issues; Vol. 9, No. 3 - March 1995
Derek Hodel, GMHC Director of Federal Affairs

For the first time since the Eisenhower administration, the Republican Party holds a majority in both the Senate (54 to 46) and the House of Representatives (230 to 204, with one independent). Almost immediately, the Republicans made it plain that we were not to expect business as usual: out went nearly a third of House committee staffers. Among them were some of the staunchest defenders of AIDS programs, like Tim Westmoreland, Counsel for the House Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. (Westmoreland recently joined the Georgetown Law School's legislative clinic and has been engaged as the Washington representative for the Pediatric AIDS Foundation.)

The new majorities in both chambers also meant new committee members, new committee ratios (Republican to Democrat) and new committee chairpersons. House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R- GA) made it known that he intended not simply to preside over, but to rule the unruly House of Representatives. In a break with House tradition, he bypassed the seniority system and appointed many Committee chairs at will. Most ominous among the New(t) appointees:

- Robert Livingston (R-LA), who chaired his first meeting of the House Committee on Appropriations (funding) while sporting a machete, an alligator skinning knife and a dagger.

- Thomas Bliley, Jr. (R-VA), the conservative tobacco-state chairman of the House Commerce Committee, which will consider the reauthorization of both the National Institutes of Health and the Ryan White CARE Act.

- Henry Hyde (R-IL), author of the now infamous Hyde Amendment (the so-called gag rule that prohibits doctors from mentioning abortion in federally funded family planning clinics), who will head the House Judiciary Committee.

The corresponding shift in committee rosters yielded equally unpleasant news. Perhaps worst of all, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Resources, Education and Related Agencies (responsible for virtually all AIDS funding), lost strong AIDS supporters Jose Serrano (D-NY) and Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). Replacements include Ernest Jim Istook, Jr. (R-OK) (who campaigned on the "Gays, Guns, and God" slogan and who penned last year's amendment to kill the District of Columbia's Domestic Partnership law), Dan Miller (R-FL), Jay Dickey (R-AR), Frank Riggs (R-CA), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

At hearings last month, the first question asked HHS Secretary Donna Shalala by Chairman Livingston was, "Isn't it true, Madame Secretary, that more people die of breast cancer than AIDS?"

The Contract on America

In a particularly ugly episode, the new majority of the House Appropriations Committee took up their first rescission bill. Such bills are a relatively routine mechanism for taking back money that appears likely not to be spent, but this one provided the Republicans with an opportunity to do some retroactive acting out.

The health subcommittee of the full Appropriations Committee passed a bill carving $23 million out of AIDS prevention programs and $13 million out of Ryan White CARE Act AIDS services funding. AIDS partisan Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) made it a point of principle to amend the chairman's bill and restore the AIDS funding, but was defeated on a tie vote (seven to seven), which Chairman Livingston broke in favor of the cut. AIDS housing programs fared still worse. In a separate vote, the housing appropriations subcommittee killed the entire $186 million program budget.

The rescissions sent a chill through activists around the country, who rapidly mobilized. In the space of one week, before the bill came up for consideration by the full Appropriations Committee, constituent pressure had convinced fifteen Republicans to break ranks and support Rep. Pelosi's amendment restoring both Ryan White Act and AIDS prevention money. In a separate vote, committee members refused to restore the housing money. The rescission bill then passed the House and now awaits consideration by the Senate, so the fate of this year's AIDS funding remains unknown.

For AIDS, the events of the last weeks are only portents of evil things to come. It is clear that for those at the bottom of the social heap, the going is going to get a lot tougher. Stay tuned.

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Copyright © 1995 - Treatment Issues. Reproduced with permission. Treatment Issues is published twelve times yearly by GMHC, Inc. All rights reserved. Noncommercial reproduction is encouraged. Subscription lists are kept confidential. GMHC Treatment Issues, The Tisch Building, 119 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011 fredg@gmhc.org http://www.gmhc.org

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