GOP’s ‘discriminatory’ funding shift draws ire from Democrats and nonprofits

Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups are speaking out against a new announcement from House Republicans targeting funding for nonprofits, calling the latest move “discriminatory” and an attempt to limit dollars to LGBTQ organizations.

House Republicans recently announced they will limit community projects eligible for federal funding as part of the annual appropriations process, in a move that critics say could harm LGBTQ groups and have broader implications for other nonprofits.

“This measure is a scandalous attempt to target LGBTQ+ organizations and cut funding for needed resources in our communities,” said David Stacy, vice president of government affairs at the Human Rights Campaign, in a statement.

“But the collateral damage will be significant – with groups like the YMCA and Boys & Girls Clubs swept up in the same discriminatory tide.”

The House Appropriations Committee, which produces the government’s 12 annual funding bills, said Thursday that it would prevent nonprofits from being eligible for community project funding through the Economic Development Initiative (EDI) account. ) as part of the annual housing and transportation appropriations bill.

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the committee’s newly appointed chair, said at the time that the change was part of a larger effort aimed at ensuring that “projects are consistent with the federal program’s community development goals.”

Cole told reporters earlier this month that members would discuss possible changes to the earmarking process, while noting that some requests have created “political problems” for people.

“That’s just the reality, and I shouldn’t be in political trouble in my district because I voted for a bill that had your earmarks,” he said.

The new measure comes after Republicans clashed over the use of so-called “reserves” in funding legislation passed last month that funded the government through fiscal 2024, with some citing dollars earmarked for projects they say are provide LGBTQ-related services, social services for undocumented immigrants, and abortions.

But advocates have targeted Republicans over the push, which critics argue is based on a broader effort to fund projects that benefit LGBTQ people.

“They targeted LGBTQ people in the appropriations process in an unprecedented way,” Stacy told The Hill on Friday. He also noted what he described as “anti-LGBTQ” riders pursued by Republicans in their funding bills last year, including defenders of the measures say would have restricted health care for trans people.

“This is a very weak signal about whether they will follow the same strategy for [fiscal] 25 accounts they made with [fiscal] 24,” he said, while also pointing to previous efforts by Republicans to defund some LGBTQ projects in appropriations bills.

Democrats came out strongly against the recent change. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator, said that “to accommodate the extremist Republican wing, Republicans are trying to eradicate any help for the LGBTQ+ community.”

“They are willing to harm their own religious organizations, seniors and veterans. The result of this change doesn’t just hurt House Democrats,” she said.

DeLauro previously called the move “a seismic shift, as nearly half of all House-funded EDI projects in 2024 were targeted at nonprofit grantees.”

“YMCAs, Boys & Girls Clubs and other groups vital to our communities are now ineligible,” she said.

“It would be a terrible idea to prohibit as much of it from going to nonprofits,” said Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), who serves on the Appropriations Committee and has clashed with Republicans over efforts that direct dollars to LGBTQ-related projects.

Pocan, who is gay, suggested that the latest measure could be a way to avoid more specific restrictions on funding for LGBTQ-focused programs or institutions.

“This could be an effort to try to prevent that,” Pocan told The Hill. “But again, this is a slippery slope. If they go that route, I don’t think it’s going to work.”

The Hill has reached out to Cole’s office for comment.

Roll call analysis found that EDIs accounted for a portion of the billions of dollars in appropriations included in last month’s batch of government funding legislation for fiscal year 2024, and that well over half of those appropriations started on the House side.

“They’re just taking a very broad approach and denying the nonprofit sector that the government depends on to provide vital services to communities across the country and just cutting them out completely,” Rick Cohen, director of communications for the Council National Nonprofit Organizations said The Hill when discussing the change.

“This is really something that, in the name of political expediency, is going to cause real pain to real people in the communities that these members of Congress represent,” he added.

Cohen said the change would likely mean tougher competition for nonprofits to compete for federal dollars, noting previous funding restrictions in the annual bill that funds the Labor departments as well as the Health and Human Services departments, known as LHHS.

After Republicans targeted funding in the LHHS bill, members turned to the annual housing and transportation funding bill, called T-HUD, for nonprofit dollars, creating what a source familiar said led to to a “huge demand for this EDI fund”.

“They had already created a bottleneck in that part, and so cutting it is the reason we are now in this situation,” they said.

“This is decreasing the options of places to go and groups were making reservations through Labor, HHS, and that was shut down and moved to T-HUD,” Cohen said. “That is shut down or at least reduced. Where else are you going?