House Democrats plan to oppose a bill to establish terms for building a Smithsonian women’s history museum on the National Mall because Republicans added language to limit its subjects to biological females.
The House is set to vote on the bill Thursday. It’s expected to pass with some bipartisan support but far fewer Democratic votes than a previous bipartisan version of the bill would have earned.
The drop in Democratic support could jeopardize the measure’s chances of passing the Senate, where it would need support from at least seven Democrats to clear a filibuster.
House Republicans amended the bill during a House Administration Committee markup in March to add the language about biological women and provisions that Democrats argue give President Trump too much control over the project.
For example, the updated measure would let the president select an alternative site for the museum over the selected location between the Washington Monument and the Holocaust Museum.
Leaders of the Democratic Women’s Caucus announced their plan to vote against the bill. They said Republicans threw away years of bipartisan work, adding that their refusal to remove the offending language jeopardizes the broad support for building the museum.
Reps. Teresa Leger Fernandez of New Mexico, Hillary Scholten of Michigan and Emilia Sykes of Ohio, the group’s chair and vice chairs, said the GOP changes give Mr. Trump and his allies “unregulated power” over the museum’s location and content.
“A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man,” they said. “Republicans traded the representation of women for Trump’s gain and ego. It’s as embarrassing as it is disappointing.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Democrats’ opposition “doesn’t make any sense.”
“It shows you how crazy the other side is right now and how void of common sense the Democrats are,” the Louisiana Republican said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson read the provision Democrats are objecting to: “The museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching and presenting the history, achievements and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.”
“The addition of the word biological made them all run for the hills,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I mean, if that’s controversial in the Democratic Party, we’re in serious trouble. The party that purports to support women [is] demanding that the museum include biological men.”
Ms. Leger Fernandez sent Mr. Johnson a letter in April cosigned by more than 140 House Democrats warning they would oppose “the politicized version” of the bill.
“While the author’s intent is clearly to target transgender women and girls, the provision invites arbitrary enforcement and could be used to challenge the inclusion of any woman or girl a politician deems not ‘feminine’ enough,” the letter read. “This is just another example of Republicans needlessly adding an anti-transgender provision to an unrelated bill that would impact not just transgender women and girls but all women and girls.”
Democrats are also objecting to Republicans passing the women’s history museum bill without bipartisan legislation that has often been considered in tandem with it to establish the terms for building a Smithsonian museum honoring American Latinos.
Congress first authorized both museums and identified prospective locations in an appropriations law enacted at the end of Mr. Trump’s first term. The additional legislation is needed to formally transfer the sites to the Smithsonian Institution.
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