House rejects Smithsonian women's museum bill after GOP bans 'biological men' from exhibits
>What started as a widely backed proposal to locate a new Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum on the National Mall devolved into a partisan fight Thursday after Republicans revised the legislation to ensure no transgender people are included in the exhibits.
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>The House rejected the bill, 204-216, an outcome that leaves the next steps uncertain. The revised bill also would ban a “diversity” of views and give President Donald Trump the final say on where the museum would be located.
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>“It was a simple bill. You kind of ruined it with your trans obsession and your culture wars,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico and chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said earlier in the week.
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>But Republicans argued it was Democrats who were overreacting to the changes and now threatening progress toward establishing the long-sought women’s museum in the nation’s capital.
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>Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, the bill’s chief sponsor, said “it’s a disgrace” that Democrats would be standing in the way of the bill’s passage.
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>“Perhaps the party that is opposing a women’s history museum on the National Mall because they want to have transgender exhibits — maybe they are the ones who are trans obsessed,” Malliotakis said.
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>In the final tally, a handful of Republicans voted against the bill, joining Democrats who led the opposition. The chamber came to a standstill as GOP leaders scrounged for support from their ranks.
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>The House rejected the bill, 204-216, an outcome that leaves the next steps uncertain. The revised bill also would ban a “diversity” of views and give President Donald Trump the final say on where the museum would be located.
>
>“It was a simple bill. You kind of ruined it with your trans obsession and your culture wars,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez, a Democrat from New Mexico and chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said earlier in the week.
>
>But Republicans argued it was Democrats who were overreacting to the changes and now threatening progress toward establishing the long-sought women’s museum in the nation’s capital.
>
>Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis of New York, the bill’s chief sponsor, said “it’s a disgrace” that Democrats would be standing in the way of the bill’s passage.
>
>“Perhaps the party that is opposing a women’s history museum on the National Mall because they want to have transgender exhibits — maybe they are the ones who are trans obsessed,” Malliotakis said.
>
>In the final tally, a handful of Republicans voted against the bill, joining Democrats who led the opposition. The chamber came to a standstill as GOP leaders scrounged for support from their ranks.