Republican Defenders of the Confederate Flag Derail a Spending Bill
Late Wednesday night, Representative Ken Calvert of California, the chief GOP author of the appropriations bill, surprised Democrats by introducing an amendment, slated to be voted on Thursday, that appeared to undo the changes already added and restore the Confederate flag to national cemeteries. Democrats were aghast. According to Roll Call, Representative Betty McCollum was “audibly shaken” as she rose to protest the move in a speech on the House floor. The chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, G.K. Butterfield, took to the floor to express his “utter outrage”:
Don’t Republicans understand that the Confederate Battle Flag is an insult to 40 million African Americans and to many other fair-minded Americans?
By Thursday morning, Republican leaders decided that instead of risking a public debate over the flag, they would pull the entire spending bill from the floor.