Hatch Would Make NEA Pay Obscenity Suit Costs

A key Republican senator will propose that the National Endowment for the Arts be required to pay the legal fees of anyone who wins an obscenity suit in a state court over art produced under an NEA grant.

The plan of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), disclosed in Washington late Wednesday, would amend a bill to extend the arts endowment’s legislative life so that artists who produce obscene works could be ineligible for federal grants for as long as 10 years.

The Hatch measure would also have the NEA publish standards to prevent federal sponsorship of art “which is obscene or racist or . . . denigrates a particular religion.”

Hatch is a member of a Senate subcommittee that, earlier Wednesday, unanimously voted out to the Education and Labor Committee a bill to extend the NEA for another five years.

The move came hours after Rep. Paul B. Henry (R-Mich.) released the text of another amendment, one that would bar NEA support of art works that “deliberately denigrate the cultural heritage of the United States,” are obscene or indecent or defile people on religious or racial grounds.

The actions occurred as the White House apparently abandoned President Bush’s effort to advocate reauthorization of the arts endowment without imposing legislative language restricting what kinds of art the government can support.

“There are discussions going on, not necessarily negotiations,” said Alixe Glen, a deputy White House press secretary. “We are at this point open to suggestions, as long as (they) are not overly restrictive or end up gutting the NEA. We don’t think that art should be censored by statutory law.”

At the subcommittee meeting, Hatch said the Senate may still have to face the content-control issue. “We will deal with this controversy; it will not be swept under the rug,” he said. “We will fashion legislative language to address the controversy now clouding this agency.

“I cannot tolerate spending hard-earned tax dollars on art that is obscene, racist or clearly blasphemous.”

FOCUS OF DEBATE SHIFTS--Acceptable regulatory language sought in NEA talks. F1