House Plans Vote on NEA Funding Soon: Contact Your Legislators

After many weeks without a speaker, Republicans in the House of Representatives closed ranks and voted unanimously to approve Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana to lead the chamber. With Johnson now in place, the House has begun to resume regular legislative business.

A priority of Speaker Johnson is to complete the appropriations process as soon as possible. As you know, Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown in September, when it agreed to a short-term continuing resolution that funds all federal agencies until November 17. With that deadline quickly approaching, the House is attempting to pass all 12 appropriations bills, including that of the Interior Department and Related Agencies (which includes the National Endowment for the Arts [NEA]). While no vote on that bill has been set yet, we do expect it to happen soon. In fact, the House Rules Committee is meeting today to consider amendments to it, including two that would eliminate funding for the Arts Endowment.

While it is disappointing that two members of Congress have decided to offer amendments of this nature, we do not expect either to garner significant support. Nonetheless, with Congress working aggressively to finalize appropriations this year, now is the ideal time to contact your members of Congress and urge them to:

oppose any amendments that would reduce or eliminate funding for the National Endowment Arts, and
support the Senate’s proposal to maintain level funding for the agency.

Strengthen your message to your representatives with these important points:

Share that 40% of all grant dollars allocated to the agency go directly to state arts agencies and regional arts organizations, broadening the impact of the funding and allowing the NEA to support grants in every congressional district in the United States.
Remind them that public funding for arts and creativity is a high-return investment that strengthens every city, town and rural community nationwide.

Much like in September, we expect negotiations on the federal budget to go down to the wire. It is unclear at this time whether Speaker Johnson has the will (and political capital) to make a deal with Senate Democrats to extend funding. Therefore, a government shutdown is appearing to be a likely outcome. As the negotiations continue, NASAA will keep you up to date.