House Speaker Mike Johnson is being rebuked by Republican colleagues for myriad earmarks related to transgender and abortion care as part of Congress' $1.2 trillion spending bill.
A midnight deadline on Friday looms to avoid a partial government shutdown. Lawmakers are being asked to vote on a six-bill package of more than 1,000 pages that provides money to areas including defense, homeland security, labor, health and human services, financial services and the legislative branch. If approved, a shutdown would be avoided, and the government would be funded until the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
The package contains earmarks with which many House GOP members part of an already razor-thin majority take umbrage, including for abortion-related care and LGBTQ+ causes. Although lawmakers usually are allotted 72 hours to review legislation, Johnson suggested waiving the rule to get something passed.
Many conservatives waged a culture war in 2023, sparked by Bud Light teaming with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as part of an advertising campaign that led to numerous ad campaigns across business sectors, resulting in consumer boycotts and even physical demonstrations in stores like Target.
One item in the package includes a purported $400,000 toward gender-affirming clothing for Briarpatch Youth Services in Wisconsin, introduced by Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat.
Briarpatch's Teens Like Us Program provides support and education for queer youth ages 13 to 18, according to its website.
"Founded over 20 years ago, TLU [Teens Like Us] provides a safe, brave place for queer and questioning youth to meet with their peers," the website says. "We serve youth across the state of Wisconsin!"
Newsweek reached out to Briarpatch and Johnson via email for comment.
The $400,000 can only be used for mental health services and counseling for kids experiencing homelessness, not for the Teens Like Us program, according to a source from Baldwin's office. Since these are federal funds administered through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration, they cannot be used for activities outlined in Teens Like Us.
The funding will specifically be used toward youth outreach and system implementation, the source said, as well as navigating reporting and billing, hiring a licensed clinical social worker, developing written standards, intake and assessment procedures, curriculum and development, and evaluation standards.
Briarpatch receives other federal funding from the Department of Health and Human Services Runaway and Homeless Youth programs and has since at least 2017. The Trump administration in 2020 also awarded Briarpatch $350,000 in annual grants for its runaway and homeless youth programs.
"Senator Baldwin is proud to deliver resources for Wisconsin to help kids experiencing homelessness get the care they need and land on their feet," Baldwin spokesperson Eli Rosen told Newsweek.
Other earmarks of note, as highlighted by the House Freedom Caucus in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, include:
- $1,808,000 for "facilities and equipment" for the Women and Infants Hospital in Rhode Island.
- $650,000 for Dartmouth Hitchcock Nashua in New Hampshire, which according to its website "routinely provides" medication and procedural abortion care up to 22 weeks of pregnancy.
- $400,000 for the Garden State Equality Education Fund in New Jersey, which helps minors transition.
- $156,000 for the Hartford Gay & Lesbian Health Collective in Connecticut.
- $850,000 for LGBTQ Senior Housing Inc. in Massachusetts as part of an LGBTQ-only senior community in Boston.
- $2,000,000 for La Clinica del Valle Family Health Care Center in Oregon to conduct gender-affirming hormone therapy for adults and adolescents.
"No @HouseGOP should vote for the #SwampOmnibus with these earmarks," the House Freedom Caucus wrote on X. "A massive spending bill drafted in secrecy and dropped on us in the middle of the night is being rushed to the House floor for a vote with less than 36 hours to review."
"Despite what the House Freedom Caucus said, the $2 million we received as part of the legislation has nothing to do with gender-affirming hormone therapy," Julie Wurth, spokesperson for La Clinica del Valle Family Health Center, told Newsweek via email. "This money is part of a project we've got underway to improve our acute care clinic and will go toward remodeling a building that will become a drive-up pharmacy and processing lab."
Other House Republicans who have admonished the process include Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene, who slammed the legislation for providing "no accountability for the failed withdrawal of Afghanistan" in addition to not banning climate-related spending or Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
"The minibus was released at 2:32 am and is 1,012 pages of $1.2 trillion taxpayer dollars," Greene wrote on X. "And we are supposed to be voting on it tomorrow morning under suspension with no amendments allowed with the super scary government shutdown deadline threat looming tomorrow at midnight.
"It takes 27.8 hours for the average reader to read 1,000 pages. I guess we are supposed to just pass it first and then find out what's in it like Nancy Pelosi says."
This is the second of two spending bills introduced this year. The first six-bill package, voted on March 8, included funding for the Departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development, Justice, Transportation and Commerce, as well as military construction.
"The GOP culture war against the LGBTQ+ community has heated up over the last several years as the LGBTQ+ community has become more prominent, and as conservative politicians have recognized that opposition to anything related to the LGBTQ+ community gains them credibility to their core voters," Joanna Schwartz, marketing professor at Georgia College & State University, told Newsweek via email.
She added prior to the bills' passing: "The idea of potentially shutting down the government by holding up a $1.2 Trillion dollar spending bill for expenses that don't amount to a grain of sand on that beach is, of course, ludicrous."
Update 03/25/24, 9:27 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comments from La Clinica del Valle Family Health Center and Joanna Schwartz.
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