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.
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.
Among the Republican opponents, some conservatives simply disapproved of a museum focused on women at all.
“We say we need to unite this country, but then we isolate every group,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., who was among several from the conservative Freedom Caucus who voted against it.
Future of museum is now uncertain
The turn of events puts at risk the long effort to open a museum in Washington dedicated to women. Legislation authorizing the museum was approved during Trump’s first term, in 2020, and this latest bill would secure its location on the National Mall. Trump has taken interest in reshaping the capital’s cultural institutions, from the Kennedy Center to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
At the start of the year, the bill had secured some 230 sponsors, a rare show of bipartisanship in the split House, where Republicans hold a slim majority. But because of the changes to the bill, the Democratic Women’s Caucus opposed the final version, and Democratic leaders encouraged a no vote.
“A museum about women, fought for and supported by women, should not be controlled by one man,” the leaders of the women’s caucus said in a statement. “Republicans traded the representation of women for Trump’s gain and ego. It’s as embarrassing as it is disappointing.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson said the changes shouldn’t be controversial, but his effort to pass the bill with Republicans alone over the objections of Democrats failed.
“Why are they backing out? Simply because the bill reinforces an objective truth that a museum for women, get ready, should showcase only women,” said Johnson, R-La.
On Thursday, Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said she brought her young daughter, Augusta, to the chamber to see history being made.
“Biological women deserve to have their stories told,” Cammack said, holding her child during her speech.
But Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, said the Republicans ditched the bipartisan bill for one favored by Trump’s White House.
Changes to the bill angered Democrats
Initially presented as a step toward securing the museum’s location, the legislation was revised during a committee vote last month in several ways.
One change added a mission scope that states, “The Museum shall be dedicated to preserving, researching, and presenting the history, achievements, and lived experiences of biological women in the United States.”
It also adds a prohibition which states, “The Museum may not identify, present, describe, or otherwise depict any biological male as a female.”
Another change added specific detail about where the museum would be located on the mall — near 14th Street Southwest and Jefferson Drive, “except that the President may designate an alternative site for the Museum within 180 days of the date of the enactment of this subsection.”
Democrats said that the provision change gives Trump the authority to decide where the museum would ultimately go. “And we do not agree with that,” said Leger Fernandez.
But Republicans argued that the provision is simply a fail-safe in the event there’s any problem with the proposed site to ensure the museum can move ahead.
An additional revision this week removed the word “diversity,” saying instead the museum’s organizing council should ensure a “range” of political viewpoints and experiences.
“I just think it’s ridiculous that we are arguing over this,” said Malliotakis.
She said it’s bothering Democrats that it will be Trump who breaks ground on the museum, “but that’s the reality.”
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Associated Press writers Stephen Groves, Joey Cappelletti and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.
